Why does all the “news” seem to be bad? Why do we pay more attention to slights than to compliments? Why do negative events affect us longer than positive ones? And why are we more focused on potential losses than on potential gains?
Chalk it all up to the negativity bias: our brain’s hardwired tendency to accentuate the negative and slough off the positive. As psychologist Rick Hanson puts it:
The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.
Understanding that the unconscious part of the brain (System 1) is wired for survival makes it easier to understand why it is riddled with cognitive biases. System 1 doesn’t use logical, linear thinking to draw conclusions because that kind of thinking is slow and energy-intensive.
It uses associative thinking, which consists of seeing patterns and making lightning-speed connections. Cognitive biases are mental shortcuts, rules of thumb System 1 uses to interpret what’s happening and how we should react.
Because survival is System 1’s prime directive, it operates based on the assumption that it’s better for us to be safe than to be sorry. Positive things may indeed help us survive. But negative things can kill is. One way we can remain safe is by having the ability to quickly detect threats. And in fact you wouldn’t be wrong to think of System 1 as a highly sensitive threat-detection system, the purpose of which is to notice and alert us to any signs of danger.
The negativity bias is part of that system, functioning like radar to filter out the positive “noise” and home in on the negative signals.
One result is that we have a stronger emotional reaction to negative stimuli, which increases the likelihood we’ll remember it. Because it takes less time for negative experiences to get stored in memory than for positive experiences, System 1 has more negative memories to draw on than positive ones when it’s evaluating information. This also leads us to believe that more negative events are taking place than positive events.
Another result is that we’re extremely sensitive to perceived or apparent threats. These days, those threats are less likely to be related to our immediate survival. But that doesn’t make any difference to our brain. We react just the same whether the threat is to our ideas and beliefs, to our physical or emotional well-being, to our self-esteem, or to a freedom we hold dear.
In and of itself, having a brain that reacts quickly to threats isn’t a bad thing. That kind of information is potentially very useful. It’s the way we over-value and respond to negative information that gets us into trouble. Whether in our intimate relationships, our international relations, or our personal health and well-being, the actual and potential costs of allowing the negativity bias to run unchecked are enormous.
We can’t change the brain’s hardwiring. We can’t simply try to adopt a positive attitude. But we can overcome some of the pernicious effects of the negativity bias by using System 2, the conscious part of our brain.