What is the Negativity BIAS? | Dr. Rick Hanson Ph.D., The Science of Happiness

[Music] CSU mentions the negative negativity bias you take maybe a quick second to explain to listeners what that is yeah well we all kind of know what it's like from the inside out say you have a job review a performance review and your boss gives you ten kinds of feedback and nine of them are positive and one of them is room for improvement well that's why do you think about for the rest of the day or you complain about your partner that night right or my boss doesn't understand me weird or you have interactions let's say with your partner or a friend and nine of them are positive and one is kinda irritating well what's the one you review as you fall asleep and are still thinking about when you wake up the next morning so that's our nature we're like that why are we like that the key idea here is that our ancestors over 600 million years during the evolution of the nervous system needed both to get carrots and avoid sticks carrots like food sticks like predators all right the negativity bias is really useful if you're trying to work in a war zone or you grow up and what feels like a war zone yeah but for most of us it's like it's like a feature that's now a bug in the underlying machinery we overreact the negative and we under react to the positive we over learn from what's bad and we under learn from what's good you know we're good at learning what's from what's bad we're bad at learning from what's good even though learning from what's good learning from experiences that are usually emotionally positive of the psychological resources we want to grow inside ourselves like calm strength or gratitude or loving connection with others a sense of secure attachment to others for example those are good things to grow in ourselves and they feel good one of the functions of positive emotions broadly is to mark and motivate the experiences that are good for us which are the first step of growing good inner strengths good psychological resources inside ourselves so it's it's kind of unfortunate you know we're bad at learning from the good we're good learning from the bad and take away from that for me is to recognize what is a problem recognize injustice recognize suffering recognize threats deal with things there we are you're climbing right to go back to that metaphor you're climbing you know be aware of how far above your protection you are or whether a storm is coming in or whether your partner's being sloppy and their safety procedures you know recognize those things on the one hand but on the other hand try not to marinate in them turn it to reinforce that irritation or anxiety or or feelings of inadequacy because the brain is really vulnerable to that and meanwhile grow the inner strengths inside that help you cope with challenges outside yourself or inside yourself without going into the red zone like with rock climbing can be in challenging situations but because you've got resources inside including your skills and your attitudes and your self-awareness you don't need to freak out right and then over time also really really really in addition to growing specific resources by you know helping the neurons that are firing together to actually wire together I'll leave those residues behind in addition to that a key takeaway is when you have these authentic moments throughout your day when huh you just kind of have a chance to settle in the Green Zone huh just a moment of ease a moment of reassurance like with you I'm having a lot of fun here just there's a fellowship with you you're just huh it's not more than what it is but it's not less than what it is take it in so then you gradually build up this underlying sense of well-being that you carry with you increasingly and it's because it's internalized because it's literally hardwired into your nervous system you develop more of a positive mood a sense of resilient well-being as your underlying core of being it becomes increasingly unconditional because it doesn't depend on it on external conditions anymore since you've grown it inside yourself over time

Channel: The IPS Project: Educational Platform on Life

Views: 3,343

Keywords: Rick Hanson, The IPS Project, The IPS Podcast, Jellis Vaes, what is the negativity bias, The Science of Happiness, Inner Picture Stories, NeuroDharma, rick hanson neuroplasticity, hardwiring happiness, dr rick hanson negativity bias, dr rick hanson youtube, dr rick hanson taking in the good, hardwiring happiness by rick hanson, negativity bias, negativity bias examples, negativity bias explained, negativity bias rick hanson

Id: BKXHNMoGgQE

Length: 4min 24sec (264 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2020