13 ms·

Humans are wired for negativity

112 points by RV86 12y ago

pcarolan 12y ago
bullshit
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
melling 12y ago
Yes, people do it here a lot. The Wall Street Journal comments section, for example, is unbearable because it's simply full of negative comments. I don't mind people being critical because sometimes negative people are actually well informed. Unfortunately, there's too much fire and forget without any accountability. Anyway, we just need to figure a way to raise the bar in such a way that real information is passed on rather than unadulterated opinion.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hliyan 12y ago
Perhaps it's more a physical thing than a metaphysical or psychological thing. We live in a universe of increasing entropy and by definition, for any expected outcome the possible disorderly states vastly outnumber the orderly ones. So when we contemplate a set of outcomes for a single future event, it is likely that we always end up contemplating more negative ones than positive ones?
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  Optimism only works in an environment of increasing energy supply and resources. Optimists in the harsh Viking Greenland colonies who tried to increase their cattle herds died of starvation, because the over grazed pasture would fail. There are records of this; it's not speculation. For 99.99% of human history optimistically going for a venture lead to death. Not obsessively focusing on risks was a reliably horrible idea. It's really only been since the dawn of the industrial age that optimism has been a viable strategy. This applies to social ambition as well. Not being hyper attuned to your rank in society for most of history was a good way to get run through with a sword.
- mratzloff 12y ago
  This was my conclusion as well. Also, planning for negative outcomes ensures survival much better than planning for positive ones.
joesmo 12y ago
"Aside from Dutch, all other languages lean toward the bleak." This is rather interesting. I wonder if this contributes to their low rate of aggressive dreams and positivity. Furthermore, it would be interesting to study if this might somehow be connected with their very "liberal" policies towards sex and drugs, sources of pleasure.
pcarolan 12y ago
We are good at processing negative information. That doesn't mean we are a race of 'depressive realists' or that significant positive emotional events are not the defining building blocks of our character.
yanowitz 12y ago
Interesting article that buried the lede. The part about the criticism of the positivity ratio was particularly interesting because a co-author wrote the brilliant parody of post-modernism published in one of its seminal journals, Social Text (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair). A critique by Sokal is prima facie intriguing. I need to go read the original article but the Wikipedia summary is fascinating (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_positivity_ratio http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_positivity_ratio) in specific, Fredrickson and Losada appear to have chosen functional parameters that yield good results, not ones based on evidence.
yellow_and_gray 12y ago
Negativity was interpreted negatively in this article. It shouldn't be. Negativity can be positive. Cultivating dissatisfaction is key to doing good work. If you can't bring yourself to say "Man, this sucks, I could do better than that" how will you try to do better? In fact, research shows people who are motivated more by the fear of loss rather than the hope of gain, in other words, defensive pessimists, are better prepared to handle the obstacles that get thrown in their path. Being negative is the strongest motivation for these people. The irony of it is humans being wired for negativity sounds like bad news for the optimists. But there's a way to model optimists in terms of negativity too. Optimists have what Keats referred to as high negative capability: they are capable of "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason". As a practical matter, I think it helps to honor both the negative and the positive. Be negative when you are figuring out what you want to fix that's broken, and be positive about bringing yourself to actually do it.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - drdeadringer 12y ago
    Let's say I am negative about how the DMV handles my paperwork for whatever I need to dance through with them. I arrive "over prepared", just to be sure. ... and I arrive to find the DMV haplessly in worship of Saint Kafka. By my negativity [distrusting an organization to do their job and have themselves together enough to tie their own shoes] I made the process better by arriving "over" prepared.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - mtrimpe 12y ago
        There's no mention of external in that definition though and internal verbalization is also often considered as a form of expression... If you shout in the forest and nobody hears you; are you not still expressing your self?
mmaunder 12y ago
This along with all the other articles about how it's OK to be sad, depressed, burnt out, unable to focus, disinterested and demotivated are complete bullshit. We're living in a society where we no longer have any real battles to fight and our culture is starting to conjure imaginary problems out of thin air and then come up with creative ways to solve them. "...even a random snide comment take up most of our psychic space, leaving little room for compliments or pleasant experiences to help us along life’s challenging path." Here, have a strong cup of toughen-the-fuck-up. PS: The fact that you're finding this at the bottom of the page and greyed out is a case in point on how HN has fallen in love with self pity. (Not an edit)
- 31reasons 12y ago
  I am not sure if you are being ironic with your PS or not but you assumed negatively how HN will respond to your comment.
  - dang 12y ago
    It's a variant of Muphry's Law.
- drdeadringer 12y ago
  What if I told you that "toughen-the-fuck-up" does little to address positively actual depression and burn out?
  - Swizec 12y ago
    As a person who was both actually depressed and actually burnt out (separate occasions, yay). Toughening the fuck up was the only thing that actually helped. As a fictional man with a steel jaw and a nose that was never broken in over 50 fights once said "It's not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep going forward"
    - dbshapco 12y ago
      Yes, wear your opponents out, Thunderbolt. It only takes getting up one more time than they knock you down.
fela 12y ago
Or, rephrasing it a little "we put much more energy and resources into what is not working well and can be improved or could be dangerous then into what is already good", which sounds a lot less surprising.
known 12y ago
This is what causes the ‘fight or flight’ reflex – a survival instinct based on our ability to use memory to quickly assess threats.
taksintik 12y ago
"Wired" is essentially referring to genetics. ~ 8% of our genomic lineage is that of a virus. Negativity is just the manifestation of an innate human pathogenic desire to cause harm. It's just nature working its magic.
michaelochurch 12y ago
First, it makes sense. A teaspoon of wine in a barrel of sewage makes a barrel of sewage. A teaspoon of sewage in a barrel of wine makes a barrel of sewage. This isn't just a snide saying. It applies directly to, say, the safety of drinking water. That obsessive search for what might be wrong has held an evolutionary benefit for millions of years. There's also a social power in it. We claim that we want to lead via inspiration and charisma, and that carrot-driven approach works at the big-picture level, but most people who succeed in business, day to day, get their way by exaggerating the negative consequences of whatever they don't want. "I want X" is to put yourself out there and risk being called a bike-shedder. "The company is fucked if not-X" makes it sound like you're looking out for the group... unless you do it too often. So much of the tension and negativity in corporate life comes from the accumulations of these phony existential risks (and the bad decisions resulting from people, especially at the top, buying into them). (This is not to say that one should directly apply the stick, i.e. be a bully. You don't want that. You want to convince people that there is objective harm to the group, out of your control, that will befall it, if not-X is chosen. If you're the one holding the stick, then you'll be seen as an extortionist dickhead, but invocation of external sticks is quite powerful; see: religion.) Then there's the art of the complain-brag. The best way to diffuse envy of an elevated position is to make it seem like it actually entails a lot of suffering. "I envy you guys on the floor; I just sit in meetings all day." From CEOs to middle managers, people pretend their jobs are unenviable, because it makes the organization more stable that way. But the picture that people end up with is that things are unpleasant from any direction and unlikely to get better. Plenty of people do like their jobs, but they're not allowed to say as much to the plebs. People will tolerate much more inequality if the people above them in the ranks appear not to be enjoying the position.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  Nitpicking: >> A teaspoon of sewage in a barrel of wine makes a barrel of sewage. To be realistic, it makes a barrel of (maybe a bit cheaper) wine; alcohol kills bacteria. (As someone that eats lunch at restaurants most of my life, I avoid reading about kitchen hygiene. Laws and sausages, etc.) Edit: I didn't realize it, but I guess I am a typical example of cynical negativity. That alcoholic drinks are safe to drink is a feature, not a bug. And while not much of an oenophile, I do enjoy a glass of dry Spanish red. Just don't tell me about the sewage spoon.
hownottowrite 12y ago
Some humans... Others, not so much. A related study from last year: "Fear as a Disposition and an Emotional State: A Genetic and Environmental Approach to Out-Group Political Preferences" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12016/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12016/full "Fear is a pervasive aspect of political life and is often explored as a transient emotional state manipulated by events or exploited by elites for political purposes. The psychological and psychiatric literatures, however, have also established fear as a genetically informed trait, and people differ in their underlying fear dispositions. Here we propose these differences hold important implications for political preferences, particularly toward out-groups. Using a large sample of related individuals, we find that individuals with a higher degree of social fear have more negative out-group opinions, which, in this study, manifest as anti-immigration and prosegregation attitudes. We decompose the covariation between social fear and attitudes and find the principal pathway by which the two are related is through a shared genetic foundation. Our findings present a novel mechanism explicating how fear manifests as out-group attitudes and accounts for some portion of the genetic influences on political attitudes."
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

112 points by RV86 12y ago

pcarolan 12y ago

bullshit

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

melling 12y ago

Yes, people do it here a lot. The Wall Street Journal comments section, for example, is unbearable because it's simply full of negative comments. I don't mind people being critical because sometimes negative people are actually well informed. Unfortunately, there's too much fire and forget without any accountability. Anyway, we just need to figure a way to raise the bar in such a way that real information is passed on rather than unadulterated opinion.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hliyan 12y ago

Perhaps it's more a physical thing than a metaphysical or psychological thing. We live in a universe of increasing entropy and by definition, for any expected outcome the possible disorderly states vastly outnumber the orderly ones. So when we contemplate a set of outcomes for a single future event, it is likely that we always end up contemplating more negative ones than positive ones?

a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
Optimism only works in an environment of increasing energy supply and resources. Optimists in the harsh Viking Greenland colonies who tried to increase their cattle herds died of starvation, because the over grazed pasture would fail. There are records of this; it's not speculation. For 99.99% of human history optimistically going for a venture lead to death. Not obsessively focusing on risks was a reliably horrible idea. It's really only been since the dawn of the industrial age that optimism has been a viable strategy. This applies to social ambition as well. Not being hyper attuned to your rank in society for most of history was a good way to get run through with a sword.
mratzloff 12y ago
This was my conclusion as well. Also, planning for negative outcomes ensures survival much better than planning for positive ones.

joesmo 12y ago

"Aside from Dutch, all other languages lean toward the bleak." This is rather interesting. I wonder if this contributes to their low rate of aggressive dreams and positivity. Furthermore, it would be interesting to study if this might somehow be connected with their very "liberal" policies towards sex and drugs, sources of pleasure.

pcarolan 12y ago

We are good at processing negative information. That doesn't mean we are a race of 'depressive realists' or that significant positive emotional events are not the defining building blocks of our character.

yanowitz 12y ago

Interesting article that buried the lede. The part about the criticism of the positivity ratio was particularly interesting because a co-author wrote the brilliant parody of post-modernism published in one of its seminal journals, Social Text (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair). A critique by Sokal is prima facie intriguing. I need to go read the original article but the Wikipedia summary is fascinating (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_positivity_ratio http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_positivity_ratio) in specific, Fredrickson and Losada appear to have chosen functional parameters that yield good results, not ones based on evidence.

yellow_and_gray 12y ago

Negativity was interpreted negatively in this article. It shouldn't be. Negativity can be positive. Cultivating dissatisfaction is key to doing good work. If you can't bring yourself to say "Man, this sucks, I could do better than that" how will you try to do better? In fact, research shows people who are motivated more by the fear of loss rather than the hope of gain, in other words, defensive pessimists, are better prepared to handle the obstacles that get thrown in their path. Being negative is the strongest motivation for these people. The irony of it is humans being wired for negativity sounds like bad news for the optimists. But there's a way to model optimists in terms of negativity too. Optimists have what Keats referred to as high negative capability: they are capable of "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason". As a practical matter, I think it helps to honor both the negative and the positive. Be negative when you are figuring out what you want to fix that's broken, and be positive about bringing yourself to actually do it.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- drdeadringer 12y ago
  Let's say I am negative about how the DMV handles my paperwork for whatever I need to dance through with them. I arrive "over prepared", just to be sure. ... and I arrive to find the DMV haplessly in worship of Saint Kafka. By my negativity [distrusting an organization to do their job and have themselves together enough to tie their own shoes] I made the process better by arriving "over" prepared.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - mtrimpe 12y ago
      There's no mention of external in that definition though and internal verbalization is also often considered as a form of expression... If you shout in the forest and nobody hears you; are you not still expressing your self?

mmaunder 12y ago

This along with all the other articles about how it's OK to be sad, depressed, burnt out, unable to focus, disinterested and demotivated are complete bullshit. We're living in a society where we no longer have any real battles to fight and our culture is starting to conjure imaginary problems out of thin air and then come up with creative ways to solve them. "...even a random snide comment take up most of our psychic space, leaving little room for compliments or pleasant experiences to help us along life’s challenging path." Here, have a strong cup of toughen-the-fuck-up. PS: The fact that you're finding this at the bottom of the page and greyed out is a case in point on how HN has fallen in love with self pity. (Not an edit)

31reasons 12y ago
I am not sure if you are being ironic with your PS or not but you assumed negatively how HN will respond to your comment.
- dang 12y ago
  It's a variant of Muphry's Law.
drdeadringer 12y ago
What if I told you that "toughen-the-fuck-up" does little to address positively actual depression and burn out?
- Swizec 12y ago
  As a person who was both actually depressed and actually burnt out (separate occasions, yay). Toughening the fuck up was the only thing that actually helped. As a fictional man with a steel jaw and a nose that was never broken in over 50 fights once said "It's not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep going forward"
  - dbshapco 12y ago
    Yes, wear your opponents out, Thunderbolt. It only takes getting up one more time than they knock you down.

fela 12y ago

Or, rephrasing it a little "we put much more energy and resources into what is not working well and can be improved or could be dangerous then into what is already good", which sounds a lot less surprising.

known 12y ago

This is what causes the ‘fight or flight’ reflex – a survival instinct based on our ability to use memory to quickly assess threats.

taksintik 12y ago

"Wired" is essentially referring to genetics. ~ 8% of our genomic lineage is that of a virus. Negativity is just the manifestation of an innate human pathogenic desire to cause harm. It's just nature working its magic.

michaelochurch 12y ago

First, it makes sense. A teaspoon of wine in a barrel of sewage makes a barrel of sewage. A teaspoon of sewage in a barrel of wine makes a barrel of sewage. This isn't just a snide saying. It applies directly to, say, the safety of drinking water. That obsessive search for what might be wrong has held an evolutionary benefit for millions of years. There's also a social power in it. We claim that we want to lead via inspiration and charisma, and that carrot-driven approach works at the big-picture level, but most people who succeed in business, day to day, get their way by exaggerating the negative consequences of whatever they don't want. "I want X" is to put yourself out there and risk being called a bike-shedder. "The company is fucked if not-X" makes it sound like you're looking out for the group... unless you do it too often. So much of the tension and negativity in corporate life comes from the accumulations of these phony existential risks (and the bad decisions resulting from people, especially at the top, buying into them). (This is not to say that one should directly apply the stick, i.e. be a bully. You don't want that. You want to convince people that there is objective harm to the group, out of your control, that will befall it, if not-X is chosen. If you're the one holding the stick, then you'll be seen as an extortionist dickhead, but invocation of external sticks is quite powerful; see: religion.) Then there's the art of the complain-brag. The best way to diffuse envy of an elevated position is to make it seem like it actually entails a lot of suffering. "I envy you guys on the floor; I just sit in meetings all day." From CEOs to middle managers, people pretend their jobs are unenviable, because it makes the organization more stable that way. But the picture that people end up with is that things are unpleasant from any direction and unlikely to get better. Plenty of people do like their jobs, but they're not allowed to say as much to the plebs. People will tolerate much more inequality if the people above them in the ranks appear not to be enjoying the position.

BugBrother 12y ago
Nitpicking: >> A teaspoon of sewage in a barrel of wine makes a barrel of sewage. To be realistic, it makes a barrel of (maybe a bit cheaper) wine; alcohol kills bacteria. (As someone that eats lunch at restaurants most of my life, I avoid reading about kitchen hygiene. Laws and sausages, etc.) Edit: I didn't realize it, but I guess I am a typical example of cynical negativity. That alcoholic drinks are safe to drink is a feature, not a bug. And while not much of an oenophile, I do enjoy a glass of dry Spanish red. Just don't tell me about the sewage spoon.

hownottowrite 12y ago

Some humans... Others, not so much. A related study from last year: "Fear as a Disposition and an Emotional State: A Genetic and Environmental Approach to Out-Group Political Preferences" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12016/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12016/full "Fear is a pervasive aspect of political life and is often explored as a transient emotional state manipulated by events or exploited by elites for political purposes. The psychological and psychiatric literatures, however, have also established fear as a genetically informed trait, and people differ in their underlying fear dispositions. Here we propose these differences hold important implications for political preferences, particularly toward out-groups. Using a large sample of related individuals, we find that individuals with a higher degree of social fear have more negative out-group opinions, which, in this study, manifest as anti-immigration and prosegregation attitudes. We decompose the covariation between social fear and attitudes and find the principal pathway by which the two are related is through a shared genetic foundation. Our findings present a novel mechanism explicating how fear manifests as out-group attitudes and accounts for some portion of the genetic influences on political attitudes."

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]