"Do you know why our brains can replay our most embarrassing moments from years ago in high resolution, but struggle to remember a compliment from last week? The reason is our brains' tendency to hold onto negative thoughts more tightly than positive ones, referred to as the negativity bias. And this cognitive bias is often amplified by another co-occurring phenomenon researchers call the negative sentiment override."
"If you have experienced this too, you can take comfort in knowing that it's not a unique personality quirk, but a phenomenon that's been recorded and studied in evolutionary psychology for decades. This means that the mistake or past humiliation you keep reliving is, in all probability, really not that deep. This bias is a built-in feature of human wiring, shaped by evolution and reinforced by modern stress."
Human cognition favors negative information because ancestral survival required vigilant attention to threats. Negative experiences and potential dangers were more consequential than positive stimuli, so brains evolved to prioritize threats. The negativity bias and the negative sentiment override increase the salience and durability of negative memories. The amygdala amplifies reactions to emotionally arousing stimuli, strengthening encoding of negative events. Modern stressors further reinforce these ancient patterns. Recognizing the evolutionary and neural roots of negative recall can enable strategies to interrupt rumination and restore a more balanced mental narrative.
Read at Psychology Today
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