Negativity Bias – What is it ? How to Overcome it ?

In his book “Buddha’s brain”, neuroscientist and psychologist Rick Hanson details the origin of the negativity bias. He describes how our ancestors were able to survive by subconsciously avoiding things that would be dangerous like sticks, and allowing themselves to be drawn to stimuli that could help them in their survival, like carrots. Over time, they learnt that it was more important to avoid a stick that might be flying at their heads, than it was to stay and pick the carrots that they were after. The result was a tendency to pay more attention to negativity because of the dangers that maybe associated with it. Researchers have found evidence of the negativity bias in infants as young as 3 months old, because it is innate, a product of evolution- that stems from a crucial survival instinct that kept our ancestors alive and safe – that is it helped them make the smartest decisions in dangerous situations.

Several studies have shown that negative emotions activate the amygdala, a structure in the brain’s limbic system that is focused on managing fear, threats, and bad news. The limbic system plays a role in controlling many cognitive processes, and the amygdala is considered the most primitive part of the limbic system that governs motivation and emotions.

When we experience negative events, they get stored in our memories more easily than positive events. Negative events also stay in our awareness for longer as vivid short-term memories which helps our brains process and learn from them. While we may no longer need to be on constant high alert as our early ancestors, needed to be in order to survive – the negativity bias still has a critical role in how our brains function.

Negativity bias is defined as our proclivity to attend to, to learn from, and use negative information far more than we use positive information. This can lead to problems like ruminating on negative thoughts, regretting past mistakes, worrying a lot about the future. We feel the sting of a rebuke more powerfully than we feel the joy of praise.

Our bias gets activated daily, skewing our perception of the world as we give greater importance to irrelevant stimuli and interpreting them as threatening. The question that needs to be pondered upon – is being negative a bad thing ?

Negativity is linked to increased anxiety and depression; this is mainly due to the fact that negativity makes us more fearful and regretful. Negativity can lead to stress related physiological symptoms like an increased heart rate, higher startle responses, etc. this in turn could lead to difficulty falling asleep, changes in appetite and digestion and contributes to fatigue.

When we are overly negative it may be hard to trust people and build meaningful relationships, since we assume people “are all bad “and they will let us down. We may also avoid taking risks, we pass up challenges that maybe good for us, and we become prone to overlooking constructive criticism that could help us improve on our skills and abilities.

Here are three effective ways to overcome negativity bias.

1. Reframe the situation – Since our default mode is pay attention to unfortunate events, what we need to do is counterbalance it by prioritizing positivity in our lives. While avoiding negative situations can bring temporary relief, it will not solve issues in the long run. We need to understand pain, sadness and hardships are as much an inevitable part of human existence as love, happiness and pleasure are. Instead of negative aspects of life as horrible, we need to explore opening up to them fully and ask ourselves what is it here to teach me?
2. Gain clarity through self-awareness – It helps to gain awareness about how you are feeling. Once you are aware of your own emotional state, it is easier to see how the negativity bias maybe playing a role. Keep in mind though, whatever you are feeling is likely only temporary since emotions are always shifting, so do not try to push away negative feelings.
3. Practise being grateful – Gratitude is a way of seeing that alters our gaze. Cultivating gratitude is the practise of intentionally focussing on the positive aspects of your life more than the negative ones.