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The Negativity Bias

Happy weekend everyone! And as you can read from the title, it's a free topic week!

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Oh boy, another history post, how fun !" 


Hold your horses my friends. Today we're going to take a break from our history posts, and do something else instead. Social Science. So... to all you luddites(1) out there, feel free to click off this post. To be honest, if you're a luddite, why are you using a computer/phone to access this blog in the first place ?


So today we're going to discuss, in general, negative thoughts. Or negativity in general.


Negativity in a person can come from many aspects. 


One can be :

(a) negative to themselves or
(b) negative to others

Scenario (b) usually happens when one is affected mass media, which is commonplace at this day and age, bad parenting, and of course, "friends". Birds of a feather, flock together as they say. Most of the time, they're doing so just to get more attention from others and sometimes they do it very subtly, either by bullying, causing a ruckus, or sucking up to someone.


Scenario (a) happens when usually one has very, very low self esteem and confidence in themselves. This is rather common among teenagers to adults, believing that they don't serve any purpose in life, caring too much about other people's opinions, or when they experienced traumatic events throughout their lives. Usage of social media such as Facebook or Instagram further amplifies the effects of the negativity, causing insecurity, anxiety, and clinical depression (not to be confused with the mood, depressed).


You might be wondering why I skipped on Scenario (a) and started on (b). Well, I'll explain.


Scenario (b) is, in my honest opinion, less-destructive than scenario (a). In fact, the causes can be mitigated simply by offering better education (talks & counselling stuff) and disciplinary actions against them. Again, take my words with a grain of salt since I'm no science genius.


The interesting part comes at scenario (a).


Scenario (a), is mostly caused by a survival instinct that we don't really use much at this modern day and age where most dangerous environments have been conquered and the only way to get hurt is by self-negligence(2), not looking left and right before crossing the road, not paying attention on the road, etc, or crossing path with people from scenario (b). Despite so, the survival instinct is still stuck in our minds. 


The negativity bias values negative experiences and traumas more than positive experiences, since negative events usually carries a much higher cost in life, such as death or a serious injury, typically outweighing the benefits we gain from positive experiences. Hence, our hominid(3)-brains are hard-wired to be more sensitive to negative experiences, normally through vivid imaginations and rumination(4)


But, as I said in an earlier passage, this is no longer useful as we mostly conquered our dangerous environments. We still posses the survival instinct.


Our natural tendency to obsessively ruminate over past traumas and mistakes can cause depression, insecurity, addictive escapism, anger problems, sociability dysfunction, career problems, etc. It takes a lot of counter-instinctual emotional maturity and mental discipline to stop ourselves from dwelling too much on mistakes and regrets and instead to focus on positive aspirations, optimism, and hope. 


It sounds easy on paper, doesn't it ? Executing it might be even trickier.


So,  now that I've explained what is scenario (a) and scenario (b) and why does it happened, I hope you understand that it's not someone's choice that they're always stuck to the same negative recurring(5) thoughts. There must be something going on in their lives that we don't know.


We shouldn't judge people purely because they act in different ways. Trying to understand why they act like that should be our main priority.
They might have gone through something bad, something traumatic and are still trying their best to fit in and join us in our daily lives. So please, instead of judging them, ask them how you can help them in the fight against their own mind. It's better that way. Morality is key.


This is a bit long-winded(6). I apologize for wasting your time. Though, I hope you learnt and understand a thing or two from this. Thanks for reading, feel free to share your thoughts and opinion.


Cheers, 

Chua.

Word Bank

(1) Luddite - a person opposed to increased industrialization or new technology
(2) Negligence - failure to take proper care of something
(3) Hominid - any member of the Hominidae (great apes-humans)
(4) Rumination - a deep of considered thought about something
(5) Recurring - occur again periodically or repeatedly/ (of a thought, image, or a memory) come back to one's mind
(6) Long-winded - (of speech of writing) continuing in tedious length.

Comments

  1. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/f8/3f/34f83fa7c37e1903800a46e07893c201.jpg
    Seems like it

    ReplyDelete

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