Why Am I So Negative?

Why do our minds seem to hold on to the negative more than the positive? Jim explains the brain's negative bias and why it likely developed to keep us safe, and shares research examples, including how first impressions and the way information is framed shape what we remember and believe. He describes how this shows up in social situations, in couples and in the way people judge themselves, and suggests noticing something positive in a hard experience, lingering on good moments, gratitude, meditation, exercise and staying in the present. This content is educational and is not a substitute for one to one professional care.

Transcript

People are often confused by why they're so negative. Negative bias is what we call, I guess the technical term, Psychological phenomenon that explains why our brains focus more on the negative. The simple reason for this is our brain's main job is to keep us alive, And the negative stuff is just more likely to harm us. Now, There's another theory that explains this. That's right. Spans on this and they call it the evolutionary negative bias theory. And then that basically the premise of that theory is that People that were more cautious, Skeptical, And focused on the negative had a greater chance of surviving. Over the thousands of years as we evolve, Therefore their genes pass on more frequently. This makes sense, Especially thousands of years ago when life was harsh. An optimist that minimize danger may not live very long and then have a tendency not to. To procreate or pass on his genes. And this, You know, There's also this thing I'm quite fond of that I often repeat, Which is Our brains tend to remember the bad stuff very well. And the good stuff not so well. Or the popular. Saying we have in psychology neurons that fire together, Wire together. In terms of research for this, There was an Ohio State University study I found interesting, Which basically showed people pictures to arouse positive feelings. Such as sports cars or pizza. Then they showed them pictures to stir up negative feelings. Such as a mutilated face or a dead cat, And then they showed them pictures that would produce a neutral feelings such as plate or hair dryer. Then they recorded the electrical activity in the cerebral cortex. And which reflects the magnitude of information processing taking place. And what they found was. . . That the negative pictures produced much more strongly. The brain reacted much more strongly to the negative. And there was a greater surge in electrical activity when they were showing them these negative. Which you know the pictures that trigger the negative feelings. There's a neuropsychologist in California, Dr. Hansen. Who explains it as a strategy that he says we have to adopt if we want to change that, At least one that we could adopt. He says, To change this predisposition to negative, We need to linger longer on the positive to make sure that it registers. And have an emotional response while reflecting on the experience. Feeling grateful or positive. Now, The longer you do that, The more you ensure that the brain will register. And then register, Meaning that it will actually then store in long-term memory. And if we don't reflect on it, Often these experiences are just lost. When you think about the negative bias and you think about it in terms of social settings too, It explains a lot why people who tend to go to a party or a social function may become overly focused on the person that doesn't seem to like them. And yet seem to ignore all the people that do like them. Um, And I deal quite a bit with that with clients that are having social anxiety and going to social events. One of the. Other interesting things that research found, The Gottmans, Who've done a lot of research with couples, Found that there's a ratio. Five positive experiences to every one negative experience. That if couples have at least five to one, They will characterize their relationship as positive. Now if it goes below 5, And they have, Say, 3 positive for every 1 negative. They tend to characterize the relationship as negative. And in my work that I do. With couples, I see this a lot when I'm doing initial intakes, When I'm meeting with them and asking them to just sort of tell me what's been going on. They will often describe their relationship in negative terms. We don't get along. We're always fighting, We're always in conflict. We can't seem to see eye to eye, Whatever it is. So. So that's interesting, Especially with couples. There really has to be much greater emphasis on positive experiences. Five to one is, For some people, Seems like quite a thing. Very challenging thing to achieve. I remember there was a. A basketball coach. In the states that had this. He had this approach that with his players that he would for every negative comment he made. He would have at least 10 positive. I remember when my son Jayden was quite young, I tried I tried that and I just couldn't get anywhere near 10. I think the most I got to was 5. But it is difficult, I think, To. Especially with young children. Although I think it's quite important. One of the strategies that I suggest with clients myself is that. When you're confronted with a negative experience, Stop and ask yourself, What in this experience is positive, Even if it's very small? And try to focus on that at least to balance out the experience so it's not all negative. For example, If I've been fired from my job, I may reflect on the fact that I didn't like the job, Or the job was very far from home, Or the job maybe didn't pay very much. That will help to balance out. Uh, You know, Um, The experience from being just a kid. Completely negative, So. When I was doing some research for the podcast, I found some interesting Interesting research. There was one in medical procedures I found quite interesting. So what they did was they presented this medical procedure to people and they asked to either indicate whether they liked or didn't like it. So when they first presented it, To a group, They said the procedure was 70% successful. And most people. Not surprisingly, Most people liked it. Now they took another group and they basically said, There's a procedure that has a 30% failure rate. And, Uh, Which is the same thing. And then people. Most of those people did like that procedure. But what I found really interesting was that they took the group. And presented with the 70% successful and they liked it. And then they told them that this procedure actually had a 30% failure rate, Which is really the same thing. They then didn't like it. And, But what was found was really interesting is they presented to the, To the group that had the was originally given the 30% failure that most of them didn't like it. If they then came back to them and said, Well, This procedure is actually 70% successful. They still didn't like it. And what they refer to this as is a loss frame. And basically this is, You know, Similar to the negative bias. It's another way of getting Another way of sort of explaining the specifics around it. And that the brain just tend to resist change when it came to the negative, So. I found this was very similar to. Research that I looked up on the first impressions of people. First impressions of people's behavior that was negative or considered immoral. Even with following that experience if there was multiple sort of positive experiences with people. They still held on to this negative assessment of the person. And yet when the first impression was positive, It was much easier to then later have a negative experience with this person. And experience the person in a negative or characterize them as a negative person. Dislike them in some way. So there again, We're seeing the negative bias coming through that there's a much greater emphasis on the negative once the negative has sort of been established, It's very hard to move away from that. I would think that if it did other research to see how many times. How many positive experiences it would take to undo a negative first impression, It would probably be a fair amount. They also felt that this was because the Negative behavior is less common than good behavior. For example, People I would think more likely to hold the door for you than slam it in your face. And it has a lot to do with. Sort of how people function socially. If they don't have any anonymity. What I mean by that is if somebody is in a car, In a large group, We see their behavior change. Whereas if they're on their own and they're sort of like say holding a door for you and you're looking at them face to face, It's kind of hard to hide who they are. They tend to be much more, Much less likely to. Be overtly negative to you. I also found some other research that was quite interesting that actually kind of showed us that with competency, In sports and. . . End. They focus mostly on sports. That it's actually the opposite. So if a person was to say, Miss scoring half dozen goals. And then score a goal. They would tend to just remember the fact they scored a goal. And I think this is probably true in a lot of areas where I think about examples in business where people might have had. Numerous business failings and then they had a successful business. And they're viewed as a successful business person. One of the most challenging situations that I encounter And I guess most everyone has known people. Maybe perhaps you've been struggling with this. Yourself. Is that when people have enough negative experiences, They often as a way to try to make sense of it. May characterize themselves as being unlucky or cursed. Or in some cases, Feeling that they are evil. And this is simply just their way of making sense of what's been happening to them. Now the problem with this is if you sort of characterize yourself this way. Then moving ahead, You can, You know, When something happens that's negative. You're going to then reflect on, Of course, You know, This happened. I'm unlucky. I'm cursed. I'm evil, Nothing good happens to me, Etc. So then you're dealing with what we would call confirmation bias where you're. You know, Everything's being funneled through this negative view of self, This negative view of of situations that, You know. And often I guess when people I encounter people coming to therapy, They're really struggling with this. There's a lot of strategies. First of all, We. We have to change belief systems because these get rooted in people's beliefs and they're just completely inaccurate. They've been looking at their life in such a way that they're excluding most of the positive and therefore these things. Terrible way to live. You know, Unfortunately, These are just some of the things that happen, So. But the negative bias also explains why, And although we always complain about this, Why the news focuses mostly on negative news. Negative event. Is for, You know, Because this is really what people are most interested in. I guess in terms of, I don't have any stats on it, But in terms of like clicks on. On videos and stuff for different stories and things like this. There's a lot more. You know people liking or watching or clicking on these things and there would be if it was something that was just not negative or not scary or not. So difficult, So overwhelming in a sense. And although a lot of people complain about the news is mostly negative, It's like. You know, In the old days, I guess, When we had papers. If you had a headline about, You know, Somebody doing something positive. Probably wouldn't sell many papers yet if you had some headline that led with like, You know, Somehow. Crime that had taken place or something, You know, Where a number of people have been hurt or killed. Those would, You know, They would sell out more papers, Therefore make a lot more money. Anyway, So. The important thing is, You know, If we're aware of this and we're normalizing this, We're understanding this, It's like, This is how our brains operate. We're not then questioning what's wrong with me and why am I like this? Why am I so negative? We can start to understand. And normalize that we're all, All of our brains have a tendency to move towards the negative. And what we do know about in terms of life changing, This is that meditation. Practicing gratitude. Will lead you to have a more positive brain. I find that, You know, People that are able to stay in the present moment. Avoid ruminating negatively about the past or being anxious about the future. Will feel more positive. This is something that I suggest to clients that if they can just redirect themselves when they're either in the past or in the future to the present moment, Reflect on how they're doing, How they're feeling. Maybe you feel grateful for something that's taking place. They will be able to feel. More positive. But it does take work. If you just let your brain sort of run on autopilot, It's going to sort of skew towards the negative. And so that's why we have to be much more intentional and focused. And there's a lot of. Books out there, I guess a lot of them. Videos and podcasts and different things talking about how to become happier. A lot of these suggestions I've made were things that certainly will help you feel more positive. We do know that people that are sort of experiencing a lot of negativity will have a lot more cortisol in their brain and And so some of the ways that we get rid of cortisol are like through exercise, As I said, Meditation, Things like gratitude, Laughing. Spending time connected with people. You know, These are all, You know, Activities that also increase positive chemicals like dopamine. Serotonin endorphins. It's very helpful. Certainly we know exercise helps. And um. . . So it's just a matter of putting the effort in, Focusing on this stuff. There's a lot of information out there if you're willing to look. And. Don't. Don't just sit in the negative. You can change it if you put some time and effort into it. Don't just accept it as, This is the way I am. And. . . Give it a try.