“The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positives ones.”
Dr. Rick Hansen
Do you find that you tend to focus on the negative aspects of life? Whether it’s negative aspects of yourself, others, situations, or even negative versions of the future, you’re not alone. In fact, research has shown that, as human beings, we are impacted more significantly by negative experiences than positive ones. We pay attention to, learn from, and even use information that is negative more than information that is more positive. This can have negative effects on our sense of wellbeing, our mental health, and our relationships.
Recognizing negativity bias in our lives can be relatively easy. For example, how much time did you spend thinking about the insult you received from a stranger compared to the compliments you received from your loved ones? How often do you remember and ruminate on a shameful experience from your past versus a time of happiness and contentment? Even physiologically, our bodies react more strongly to aversive stimuli than pleasant stimuli.
At this point, you may be wondering why our brains have been designed to make us miserable. But if we take a step back to look from an evolutionary standpoint, this actually makes a lot of sense. From a survival perspective, experiences that threaten our wellbeing are far more important to our safety than pleasant experiences. Remembering the snake that killed our friend is more important than the berry that tasted good. If we consider how important group membership was to survival, then obviously a strong shame reaction to a behaviour that violated our group norms makes sense. Even imagining all the worst possible outcomes of a given situation would leave someone more prepared to deal with those outcomes, and therefore, more likely to survive. So in a way, we can thank this negativity bias for some of our success as a species. That said, our world has changed significantly faster than our brains, and this negativity bias is affecting many people in negative ways.
So what do we do with this information? There are several steps we can take to overcome some of this negativity, but you’ve already taken the first step. Understanding that our minds naturally attend to the negative can help us to recognize when it’s happening, and be less attached to all the negativity swirling in our heads. Some other useful strategies are:
- Self-awareness and mindfulness. Now that you know it exists, try to observe the negativity bias in action. Try to recognize when you are paying more attention to the negative or in the process of imagining all the negative outcomes of a situation. Mindfulness exercises, which encourage the observation of one’s thoughts and emotions, are useful in this regard.
- Reframing. Once you recognize the negativity bias at work in your thoughts and feelings, try to reframe some of what you’re thinking about in positive ways. Intentionally bring to mind some positive aspects of the situation or try to imagine some positive outcomes. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is excellent at reframing and restructuring negative thoughts.
- Shifting Focus. Another useful strategy is intentionally focusing on positive experiences. When something positive happens in your day or a positive emotion comes up, take some time to focus on how it feels instead of just letting it pass you by.
One other important thing to remember is that the world contains both good and bad. Negativity bias is pushing the lie that it’s all bad. We have to work to keep our view of ourselves, others, and the world, balanced and reflective of the truth: there is all kinds of good out there too.
David
Simply Counselling Services