With very few exceptions, down happens more easily than up. Think about the toddler with building blocks, the teenager on the water slide, and the adult checking bank statements. Down wins out, over and over again!

Inside the human psyche, down also trumps up because the mind is hardwired for negativity. Ever found yourself dwelling on criticism, fixating on mistakes or imagining worse case scenarios? Although the human experience is full of opposites (yes-no, on-off, light-dark), weighting (or bias) means the split is hardly fair. Negative events have a greater impact on your brain than positive ones.

In the field of psychology, this is called negativity bias. It plays out in humans as the tendency to pay greater attention to bad things – and more readily overlook good things. Common sense points to negativity bias as an evolutionary overhang. In historical times, those who were attuned to danger, threats and negative stimuli were more likely to survive!

Neuroscience has also demonstrated humans have a larger brain response to negative stimuli. The information processing part of the brain shows a surge in activity, underlining again how your perceptions, thoughts, feelings, attitude and behaviour are noticeably shaped by negative input and experience.

Here are some ways negativity bias affects your everyday:

  • Poor relationships, where you repeatedly expect the worst in other people (especially those you have known for some time) and overlook improvements since your last encounter
  • Skewed first impressions, thanks to your negative judgements weighing more heavily than your positive ones
  • Overcautious decision-making, because you fixate on the risks loom larger than any potential gains
  • Miscommunication, where your concerns about how you might be perceived prevent you from requesting important clarification
  • Under-performance, thanks to your past errors overshadowing your desire to try a new approach
  • Blamestorming, when it seems easier to focus on wrongs than pinpoint key improvements
  • Self-sabotage, because one slip from the straight and narrow quickly spirals until it becomes full-blown internal drama
  • In short, negativity bias creates a constant drag effect inside the human psyche which can be difficult to counter. Recency further intensifies the negativity bias, making matters worse if your negative experience or traumatic incident happened not long ago.

Some happy news? It is entirely possible to change your thinking patterns and awareness is the first step in combatting your tendency towards negativity. To experience more “up” in your world, practise encouraging self-talk and redirect your focus to notice and savour positive moments.