Psychological Recommendations to Help Reduce Negativity Bias

How to increase awareness and reframe your thoughts to kick the negativity away.

Imagine if you knew how to reduce the impact that negative events had on you in your life. It’s a change that would drastically improve the way you feel and your ability to cope with adverse events.

Our brains are hardwired to focus on negative events. As psychologist Dr Rick Hanson said, “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones.” These negative stimuli affect us more than positive stimuli. This is referred to as negativity bias and occurs because:

• It’s a ‘mind trick’ that happens automatically.
• Studies have shown that our brain reacts more to negative stimuli.
• It occurs naturally through child development with studies showing children as young as three months old display negativity bias.

As an assistant psychologist, I see the people I work with experiencing negativity bias all the time. But, we all experience it time and time again too. Because it’s so hard to stop, we often try and work on reducing the impact of negativity bias. Luckily, a massive advantage that we have is that we can train our mind to interpret events, interactions or scenarios in a different way to reduce the impact that negativity bias has on us.

The Impact of Negativity Bias

Negativity bias can have a profound effect on how we think, act and feel. Let’s say you’re having a performance review at work. Your manager praises your work but has a couple of things for you to work on. It’s highly likely that you can become fixated on that negative feedback, even though it is constructive. Even if you have more positive feedback from your manager, you might find yourself saying, “If I had been more proactive, I might not have had any negative feedback.” Sound familiar?

Because of the negativity bias you experience, you focus on the negative feedback and it can lead to self-defeating thoughts and rumination. You might feel low and upset with yourself. This can then impact how you behave. It turns into a vicious cycle. You can imagine that if negativity bias affects our thoughts, behaviours and feelings, it will impact our lives in general. For example:

• Researchers have found that for one negative interaction in a relationship, it could take as much as five positive interactions to outweigh this negativity.
• Cognitive behavioural therapist Eva Berkovic says, “Having a constant negativity bias is no longer necessary for our survival. Besides, continually using it can increase stress levels, impair our happiness and general quality of life.”

As studies show, we are more aroused by negative events, so it’s very natural for the negative moment to have more of an impact on us. Research published in the Journal of Depression and Anxiety found individuals who had a high negativity bias were more reactive to negative emotions, in particular sadness and disgust. Also, both conscious and unconscious processing were affected in the high negativity bias group.

The researchers concluded that the implications of having a high negativity bias are that they “provide a step toward objective markers of risk for depression.” Essentially, negativity bias can have a massive influence on our emotions and thoughts. And, because we are aware of these effects, we can implement different techniques to help reduce it.

Step 1: Raise Awareness To Your Negativity Bias

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”― Eckhart Tolle

This is the most fundamental step to reducing the impact that your negativity bias has on you. You need to make sure you’re aware that it’s happening. Within psychology, we often say you need to ‘catch’ the thought or feeling first. That way you can then take action because you now notice the negative thoughts and feelings.

“If you challenge yourself…to be mindful of your daily activities, noticing what’s important [and what isn’t], you are more likely to have positive life experiences,” explains Dr Kenneth Yeager, director of Stress, Trauma, and Resilience Program at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

Research published in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science found that individuals who engaged with mindfulness practices reported a reduction in negativity bias. They were able to classify positive and negative events equally. As mindfulness involves increasing your awareness to the present moment, it’s evident that raising your awareness of your current negativity bias, at that moment, can help with reducing it.

You need to identify your negativity bias. When it occurs, why it happens, what situations make it more likely and how you react to it. Here are a few tips:

1. Write out your negative phrases — a big part of negativity bias is that because the negative moments affect us most, we start to develop unhelpful phrases and thoughts. For example, you might criticise yourself heavily if you make a mistake and say, “I’m useless!” Start by writing them out to help you identify them and raise awareness of your negativity bias.
2. Identify your emotions — enhance your insight into how you feel. Are you stressed, angry, upset, sad? Be open and honest with yourself in these moments and take note.
3. Look for patterns — start to compile a list of the times when you notice your negativity bias kick in. Do you notice it more within a work situation? Is there a particular person around you who emphasises negative events? You’ll start to notice there are times when your negativity bias kicks in more. By knowing this, it’s easier to act on.

These steps allow you to notice triggers for your negativity bias and enable you to see how you react. By increasing your awareness to both of these, you’ve just taken the first step into helping you reduce the impact that negativity bias has on you.

Step 2: Practice Reframing Your Thoughts

“People are not disturbed by things but rather by their view of things.” — Albert Ellis

Famous Psychologist and the creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, Dr Albert Ellis has argued that our interpretation of events is the pinnacle of our distress. Yes, negativity bias occurs automatically and our brain has a greater response to it than positive events. However, once it occurs, we can still choose how we interpret the situation.

In the feedback from your manager scenario, initially, there will be that anger with yourself for not being proactive, but after a while, we can choose whether to continue to let it affect us or not. Identifying your patterns, emotions and phrases (as mentioned above) is the first step to reframing your thoughts. Now it’s time to shift to a positive mindset, to help give you an alternative view on your negativity bias.

Research has shown that individuals who generate positive outcomes and express them verbally have a reduction in anxiety and worry. By reframing our thoughts, with a more positive outlook, it can help combat some of the adverse effects of negativity bias.

How to implement:

1. Talk to yourself positively — “One of the ways to recognise, promote, and sustain optimism, hope, and joy is to intentionally fill our thoughts with positive self-talk,” says mental health expert Dr Gregory Jantz. It’s a great way to take the negativity you are experiencing and reframe it into a positive moment. In the work situation above, you may say to yourself, “Even though there was some negative feedback, I can utilise it to make myself better.” It’s a much more positive outlook on the situation. Develop positive phrases to say to yourself.
2. Soak in the good times — another great way to reframe your negativity is to “Let the [good] experience register deeply in your emotional/mind-body system,” mentions clinical psychologist Dr Rick Hanson. Some people do this by noticing the feelings or bodily sensations when a good experience is happening.

This helps with “Gradually weaving positive experiences into the fabric of your brain — reshaping it over-time and you with it,” says Dr Hanson. By doing so, when this negativity bias arises or you know that you’re in a situation that triggers negativity, you’re more likely to interpret the event positively or in a less self-defeating manner, reducing the impact of negativity bias.

Final Comments

Being affected more by negative moments is extremely common and is something that will naturally happen. Unfortunately, it can have damaging consequences, for example, on our relationships, our perception and how we feel.

On the other hand, with a bit of practice we can always change the way we respond to negativity bias, with two steps:

1. Notice your negativity bias: raise your awareness to it by writing out your negative thoughts, emotions and identify patterns.
2. Reframe your negative thoughts and feelings: Be less critical, talk to yourself positively and take in your good moments. It will help with reshaping your mind when the negative moments arise.

Negativity bias will always occur. However, we can change how we interpret and react to it.

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