Culture of negativism?

I’VE HEARD a number of people, mostly fellow Filipinos, assert that we have a culture of negativism. They say we Filipinos seem to have a special talent for homing in on the bad news, on other people’s foibles, especially those in the government and those seeking to run it. With one unfortunate comment, we pounce, and pounce hard, judging that person as if his or her entire being were contained in that one unfortunate comment (or two), disregarding the totality of his or her life, the things done, the choices made, however honorable, however worthy of praise.

Is this assertion true? Absolutely. The bad news is that we are not special. And the good news is that we are not special. This negativity bias is not a cultural thing but a human condition and has an evolutionary explanation. That does not excuse the media from their duty to ensure that news reporting is both objective and balanced, but that duty is not the point of this commentary.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 2002, explains: “The brains of humans and other animals contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news. By shaving a few hundredths of a second from the time needed to detect a predator, this circuit improves the animal’s odds of living long enough to reproduce.” For our ancestors who were then living in the wild, it was more important to be more aware of and avoid a saber-toothed tiger that wants to have them for its afternoon snack than for them to catch a deer for their dinner (there will always be another deer, but there will not be another you if that tiger gets you). It is evolutionarily adaptive for bad to be stronger than good. Thus, nastiness makes a bigger imprint and impact on our brain. Says neuroscientist Rick Hanson, one of our teachers at Search Inside Yourself: “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.”

This negativity bias permeates our lives. People—even babies as young as six months old—are quick to spot an angry face in a crowd, but slower to pick out a happy one. Psychologist John Gottman, whose field of study is intimate relationships, found a way to predict divorce with an accuracy rate of more than 90 percent by spending just 15 minutes with a newlywed couple. He says that what separates contented couples from unhappy ones is a healthy balance between the positive and negative feelings and actions toward each other. This balance, however, does not mean a 50-50 equilibrium. Rather, it is a specific ratio, of 5 to 1.

Says Gottman: “As long as there is five times as much positive feeling and interaction between husband and wife as there is negative, the marriage was likely to be stable over time. In contrast, those couples who were headed for divorce were doing far too little on the positive side to compensate for the growing negativity between them.”

The same holds true for the workplace. One study, by researcher Mario Losada, found that the ratio of positive to negative comments in the highest performing teams was 5.6 to 1. In medium performing teams, it was 1.9 to 1 and in low performing teams, it was 0.36 to 1 (i.e., three negative comments for every positive one).

The good news is that we are not doomed and that we can override this negativity bias. We start with strengthening our self-awareness. After all, we can only override something of which we are aware. Self-awareness can be trained through mindfulness practices. By paying attention to our body, breath, feelings and thoughts, we strengthen our emotional awareness.

In his book “Hardwiring Happiness,” Hanson offers many override tools and practices. He says “taking in the good” is a crucial skill to develop and a wonderful way to balance the unfair tilt of the negativity bias.

Hanson provides three easy steps to do this:

First, “turn positive events into positive experiences.” That means “actively [looking] for good news, particularly the little stuff of daily life: the faces of children, the smell of an orange, a memory from a happy vacation, a minor success at work, and so on.”

Second, “really savor it.” That is to say, “make it intense, felt in the body, and lasting.” He adds: “Rather than noticing it and feeling good for a couple of seconds, stay with it. Relish it, enjoy it, for 10, 20, or 30 seconds, so it really starts developing neural structure.”

Third, “sense and intend that this positive experience is sinking into you and becoming part of you”—in short, “becoming woven into the fabric of your brain and yourself.”

“Taking in the good” is not about putting a happy smiley face on everything. Unlike Pollyanna, it is not about denying the reality of negative emotions and experiences. According to Tony Schwartz, a business book author, speaker and CEO, what this means is “telling yourself the most hopeful and empowering story possible about any given situation without denying or minimizing the facts.”

“Positive emotions broaden our scope of attention, cognition and action, and build physical, intellectual and social resources,” says positive psychology expert Barbara Fredrickson. She points out that “negative emotions are necessary for us to flourish, and positive emotions are by nature subtle and fleeting; the secret is not to deny their transience but to find ways to increase their quantity,” and thereby get to that right balance necessary for sustainable wellbeing.

Perhaps, then, we will see our fellow human beings in a better light—as broken as all of us are, but still worthy of our kindness and compassion.

Joel Villaseca ([email protected]) is a lawyer living in New York City. He is training as a mindfulness teacher with siyli.org.