Friday Feature: Remedying Negativity Bias

Have you ever had trouble shaking a rude comment? Been offended by someone's actions, but told yourself to just let it go? Or worse yet, denied your very real feelings and told yourself to grow up?

Yeah. Me too.

As it turns out, these reactions have something to do with how we're wired. As human beings, we are predisposed, perhaps by evolution, to pay more attention to the negative than the positive. The implication of this is that it takes multiple positive comments or interactions to merely bring the playing field back to level, let alone undo the damage. This doesn't make us weak or immature or spoiled.

It makes us human.

Luckily, as humans, we're also equipped with the capability to think logically and rationally, and to decide which evaluations we accept and which we reject. Yesterday, not for the first time, but in a powerful way, I realized that it's my job to show those negative judgments the door. 

So today, I went in search of a Friday Feature on just this topic, figuring that if I felt this way, others did too. There's lots of stuff out there, ranging from TED Talks to marriage advice to articles in the popular psychology press.

In the end, I found what I was looking for in Forbes -- a helpful and optimistic article by Margie Warrell on combatting negativity bias.

Just the tips I needed for taking actions that are long overdue.