Why you focus on the negative

Do you ever find yourself stewing over one negative opinion, or fixating on the mistakes that you’ve made?

The reason for this is because negative events impact our brain and response systems, differently from positive ones, this is called the negativity bias that all humans have evolved with.

So what is the negativity bias?
The negativity bias is exactly what it sounds like, we tend to recognise, focus and respond more readily to negative events, moments and situations in our lives, more than the positive ones.

For example: you’ve just gotten an assignment back, and your teacher has given you all this positive feedback, but in there, there might also be one small slice of criticism as to how you could have done something differently or better. Despite the overwhelmingly positive feedback, your mind just keeps bringing you back to the criticism, you can’t stop thinking about it, it makes you feel like all the hard work that you have done was a failure or waste of time.

This is the negativity bias at play and is a perfect example that even when there is a balance of experiences happening, we will veer to focusing more on the negative aspects over the positive.

This is why we can generally remember negative events more vividly than overwhelmingly positive ones.

Where does negativity bias come from?

As humans, the negativity bias served a purpose throughout evolution and helped us stay alive.

Paying attention to bad, negative or dangerous things in our environment was a matter of life or death. If you were able to notice the negative or dangerous things in your environment, you were more likely to be prepared for attacks or danger, and those who survived also passed down this response system because it serves as a survival response.

There is also a lot going on in the brain when we come across negative stimuli, and there is a far greater response in our cerebral cortex when we experience or come across something negative, than positive.

There’s also a level of conditioned response that comes from focusing on the negative when it comes to fulfilling our needs and making sure that we are safe.

These can be pathways that once worked for us in a certain situation, but over the long term, they don’t provide space to grow or flourish.

For example, if you had a negative comment on an assignment or at work, you might use this as motivation to work harder the next time, to avoid the negative response you received. Over time, this gets wired into our brain, we need to for example work extra hard, to avoid painful outcomes.

Every time you work extra hard and get a good response, you get positive feedback, which further reinforces that it’s good to focus on the negative.

On the other side of the coin, if you work extra hard and you get a negative response, it further reinforces the idea that you didn’t work hard enough and you continue to focus on the negative.

As humans we also have an inbuilt rewards system, much like positive and negative reinforcement, if we find that we can get something out of a situation, then we tend to do that thing over and over again, this reinforces a certain pattern of thinking as well.

How to overcome negativity bias

The broaden and build theory suggests that positive emotions such as happiness, curiosity, excited anticipation, broaden your awareness and further encourage novel, exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this broadened behavioural range actually builds skills and resources.

How can we use this theory in real-time? It’s not about looking on the positive side of life all of the time or even trying to change our day to be filled only with positive emotions, it’s simply about recognising positive experiences that have happened throughout the course of your day. Even when there have been negative things that have happened throughout your day, there is likely a bigger picture going on that we are not opening up ourselves to look at.

My favourite tool to broaden our attention and focus is a simple one. It’s called the three good things exercise and it’s a journaling exercise I encourage you to do for at least a week.

And it’s as simple as this, at the end of your day, note down 3 good things in your day.

Now note here I am not saying note down 3 things you are grateful for, simply just note down things that are good.

So your bed might be good, the food you had for lunch might be good, your shower might be good, maybe you spoke to or saw a friend and that was good.

Just note down 3 things in your day that were simply good. If you get stuck, look around your room for inspiration!

Studies on the 3 good things exercise have shown that in one week, it can dramatically reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Why? Because you are able to rebalance and shift your perspective of your day to day life, it means that even when things are difficult, there is always a spectrum that is going on. This encourages your mind and body to get creative and build internal resources that allow you to adapt, grow and thrive.