Here, I will describe a negative way of thinking that many people do, which psychologists call the “negativity effect”.
Unfortunately, the human mind tends to focus on negative events in one’s life while ignoring positive ones. For example, imagine that a person, unfortunately, lost their expensive mobile phone but, on the same day, also found out that their salary would be increased. Because the mind tends to focus on the negative, the person may fixate on the loss of their mobile phone while overlooking the positive event of a salary increase.
This type of negative thought, where one focuses on the negative while minimising the positive, can make one feel that things are worse than they actually are, as positive events that could counteract the negativity are overlooked.
A more “helpful” way to think is to view both positive and negative events in a balanced way. Perhaps thinking, “Yes, it’s upsetting that I lost my expensive mobile phone, but on the brighter side, I got a nice salary raise at work”. It’s about treating events in one’s life in a balanced way, not just unnecessarily focusing on the negative.
The human brain’s tendency to focus on negative things may have been inherited from our ancestors many thousands of years ago, when they lived in forests. In such an environment, one’s survival would have depended on “remembering” negative events. For example, imagine that one of our ancestors was daydreaming and walking without a care in the world when they accidentally stepped on a lion’s tail! The angry lion would have given chase to our ancestor.
If our ancestor survived the ensuing chase, it would have been in his or her survival interest not to forget the negative event of stepping on a lion’s tail. By focusing on this negative event, our ancestor would have kept remembering the importance of not daydreaming while walking in the forest! While most of us nowadays don’t walk among lions and other dangers in forests, the tendency to focus on negative events may still persist in our brains.
Focusing on negative events can cause unnecessary unhappiness, as it may falsely make us feel that things are worse than they really are. It’s therefore essential to recognise and overcome such thoughts when they arise. Later on this website, I will share simple psychological methods you can use to do this.