Negative experiences have a bigger impact on our brains than positive ones
When the amygdala has flagged an event as negative, the hippocampus makes sure it’s stored carefully for future reference. Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones—even though most of your experiences are probably neutral or positive. Negative events generally have more impact than positive ones. That’s because it’s the negative experiences, not the positive ones, that have generally had the most impact on survival.
For example, it’s easy to acquire feelings of learned helplessness from a few failures, but hard to undo those feelings, even with many successes. People will do more to avoid a loss than to acquire a comparable gain. Compared to lottery winners, accident victims usually take longer to return to their original baseline of happiness. Bad information about a person carries more weight than good information, and in relationships, it typically takes about five positive interactions to overcome the effects of a single negative one.
References
- Hanson, Rick. (2009). Buddha’s Brain The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom Chapter 2.The Evolution of Suffering (p. 44). New Harbinger Publications: Oakland, CA.
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Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Neuropsychology / Evolutionary Psychology Status:☀️