5/2/2023 0 Comments Optimism biasSome were affectively neutral (an electrical outlet, a plate), some were considered positive pictures (people enjoying a rollercoaster), and some were deemed negative images (a gun pointed at the camera, a mutilated face).įindings showed more event-related brain potentials (ERPs), or activity, when participants viewed negative, as opposed to positive images, leading the researchers to conclude that our evaluations are more strongly influenced by the former. The researchers presented photos to 33 participants and measured their brain’s electrical activity to study its responses. Ito, Larsen, Smith, and Cacioppo (1998) found that our brains respond more intensely to negative stimuli. Several studies illustrate how this asymmetry affects our attention and cognitive processes on a day-to-day basis. It’s hard to argue that a negative bias isn’t still helpful in some circumstances, but as we grow and society develops, this hardwired tendency is not as useful as it once was. Negativity bias helps them avoid potentially harmful stimuli in the absence of learned information about ambiguous stimuli. 18) point out, infants don’t have extensive life experience to draw on: “the earlier an organism learns that it should avoid those stimuli that its conspecifics find aversive, the better are its chances for survival.” These days, the bias may play a role in our early development. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors were exposed to immediate environmental threats that we no longer need to worry about – predators, for example – and being more attentive to these negative stimuli played a useful role in survival. Negativity bias is thought to be an adaptive evolutionary function (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1999 Vaish et al., 2008 Norman et al., 2011). Where does this bias come from? Can we learn to spot examples of negativity bias in real life? And how can we avoid falling into the trap of getting caught up by negative events? Where does it come from? It can lead us to ruminate on small things, worry over having made a bad impression, and linger on negative comments (Lupfer, Weeks, & Dupuis, 2000 Chen & Lurie, 2013 Wisco, Gilbert, & Marroquín, 2014). Focus our attention more quickly on negative rather than positive informationĮven when we experience numerous good events in one day, negativity bias can cause us to focus on the sole bad thing that occurred.Dwell on unpleasant or traumatic events more than pleasant ones.Respond more – emotionally and physically – to aversive stimuli.Recall and think about insults more than compliments.75).Īmong other things, it can explain why we often: We can think of it as an asymmetry in how we process negative and positive occurrences to understand our world, one in which “negative events elicit more rapid and more prominent responses than non-negative events” (Carretié, Mercado, Tapia, & Hinojosa., 2001, p. Negativity bias refers to our proclivity to “attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information” (Vaish, Grossmann, & Woodward, 2008, p.
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