
Humans are wired for negativity - RV86
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/humans-are-wired-for-negativity-for-good-or-ill/
======
yellow_and_gray
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.

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hownottowrite
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."

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hliyan
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?

~~~
mratzloff
This was my conclusion as well. Also, planning for negative outcomes ensures
survival much better than planning for positive ones.

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fela
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.

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yanowitz
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.

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melling
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.

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joesmo
"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.

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pcarolan
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.

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

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mmaunder
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)

~~~
drdeadringer
What if I told you that "toughen-the-fuck-up" does little to address
positively actual depression and burn out?

~~~
mmaunder
I've watched a perfectly healthy young man of 15 get a diagnosis of depression
from a doctor and was given a prescription of Prozac. We tore up the script
and told him it was exam stress and he was fine. Still is 8 years later and
kicking ass.

Life is tough and many people, possibly most, want to be told that it's not
really tough, it's just that you're special which makes it harder for you and
this pill and less work/hardship will solve your problem.

It's why the USA is filled with people addicted to and completely anesthetized
by various prescription drugs.

Sure, real depression actually exists. But it's rare and I suspect the over-
diagnosis we're seeing is more damaging by removing people from active and
productive lives than lack of diagnosis.

When last did you hear a doctor tell someone to get regular sleep, eat well,
get some exercise and face up the the challenges they're presented?

~~~
mratzloff
There is some truth in what you're saying but you're overly dismissive of the
very real and not-actually-rare issues of depression, which have physical
causes and treatments just like any other human ailment.

Telling someone who actually has depression--that is, a brain chemistry
imbalance that causes negative feelings--to toughen up is about as helpful as
telling someone with a broken leg to walk it off.

~~~
dreamdu5t
It is nothing like a broken leg. A broken leg has a clear understandable cause
and a clear efficacious solution. Depression has neither.

If "toughen up" means eating well and exercising, it may very well be just as
effective as SSRIs:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2291072/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2291072/)

In my anecdotal experience the link between lack of exercise, poor diet, and
depression is very strong. Hopefully there is more research into this area,
but the main issue with it is that depression and SB is methodologically weak.
What counts as "depressed" and "sedentary behavior" are extremely open-ended.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20174982](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20174982)

~~~
IneffablePigeon
The thing is, "toughen up" is not taken to mean that, particularly by someone
who is depressed. It's taken to mean "stop complaining, there's nothing wrong
with you", which can be very damaging for someone in an already unstable
mental state.

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michaelochurch
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
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.

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pcarolan
bullshit

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taksintik
"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.

