We live in an age of endless information, much negative, that exposes us to a constant stream of news stories and social media posts that leave us feeling stressed and anxious. With conflict, tragedy, and injustice dominating our newsfeeds and timelines, it’s no wonder that mental health issues are globally on the rise. Part of the problem is that we are naturally predisposed to be drawn to processing negative, unpleasant events rather than to rewarding, positive events - but why? Understanding the reasons we tend to focus on the negative can help in taking steps to build a more positive brain.

The negativity bias

The negativity bias is the tendency for living creatures to react more strongly to unpleasant events and objects and continue focusing attention on this information. There is an asymmetry in how we take in positive and negative information - the negative information takes precedence in our minds.

One reason for the negativity bias is that survival is a primary motivation for living things. Monitoring, assessing, and acting quickly to environmental threats is crucial, and led to the development of neural networks that prioritize defensive action and reaction. While this bias still serves a purpose in assisting survival in the modern world, we are no longer simply susceptible to immediate threats in our local environment but to threats, disasters, and other unpleasant events all over the world, which greatly increases our exposure and affects our daily mental health.

Because attention is naturally and quickly drawn to unpleasant information, our brains are constantly thinking, ruminating and imagining negative stuff. Like anything that is constantly practiced, the brain circuits involved in defensive responding get stronger and stronger with repetition, and, because of this, come to dominate our moods and reactions.