What is the primary psychological term for the phenomenon where negative events have a greater impact on our psychological state and processes than neutral or positive events?

Negativity Bias. The Negativity Bias refers to the psychological finding that, all else being equal, things of a negative nature (thoughts, emotions, events) have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than positive things.

From an evolutionary perspective, why is the strong encoding of negative memories considered adaptive?

Focusing on threats and dangers enhances survival.. Prioritizing negative information (threats, pain, danger) allowed our ancestors to quickly learn from harmful situations and avoid them in the future, directly enhancing survival.

Which area of the brain plays a critical role in processing emotional valence and rapidly encoding fear and threat memories?

Amygdala. The amygdala is the brain’s center for emotional processing, particularly fear and threat assessment. It tags negative experiences with strong emotional weight, aiding memory consolidation.

In the context of relationships, Dr. John Gottman suggests that to maintain a positive relationship, the ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions must be at least:

5:1. Gottman’s research indicates that for every negative interaction, a stable and happy relationship needs at least five positive interactions (5:1 ratio) to counteract the negative impact, illustrating the bias.

The concept that we feel the pain of losing something roughly twice as powerfully as the pleasure of gaining the equivalent item is known as:

Loss Aversion. Loss aversion is a key component of the negativity bias, demonstrating that people strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains.

Which neurotransmitter and hormone is typically released during stressful or negative experiences and helps 'cement' the emotional memory into the brain?

Norepinephrine (Adrenaline). Norepinephrine (and cortisol) is released during stress. It increases brain activity in areas like the amygdala and hippocampus, consolidating the memory of the negative event sharply.

When assessing the character of a new acquaintance, research suggests that one single negative trait (e.g., dishonesty) weighs how heavily compared to multiple positive traits?

Disproportionately more heavily.. The negativity bias influences person perception; negative information about character is seen as more informative and diagnostic than positive information, causing it to weigh disproportionately more heavily.

The phenomenon where we pay closer attention to negative news, crises, or conflict, despite wanting general happiness, is often called:

Automatic Vigilance. Automatic vigilance describes the tendency for people to attend immediately to, and prioritize, negative stimuli because they might signal danger or threat.

Which type of memory is most likely to be enhanced and experienced with greater vividness and duration due to a strong negative event?

Episodic Memory. Episodic memory relates to personal experiences and specific events (where, when, what happened). Highly emotional (negative) episodes are often stored as powerful, vivid memories.

The speed at which individuals recognize angry or fearful faces versus happy or neutral faces is generally:

Faster for negative faces.. Studies show that threat-related faces (anger, fear) capture attention more rapidly and are recognized quicker than positive faces, supporting the vigilance aspect of the bias.

When making financial investment decisions, the tendency to hold onto losing stocks too long, hoping they will recover, rather than realizing the loss, is related to:

Loss Aversion. Loss aversion makes the emotional pain of realizing a loss (selling a stock at a lower price) greater than the potential pleasure of making gains elsewhere.

Which psychological condition is characterized by the repeated, intrusive, and vivid recall of a specific traumatic negative event?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is fundamentally rooted in the powerful and dysregulated encoding of a highly negative experience, resulting in flashbacks and intrusive memories.

Negative emotions, such as disgust, often result in stronger memory retention than neutral emotions. This is primarily because:

Negative emotions involve higher physical arousal.. High physical arousal (increased heart rate, cortisol release) signals to the brain that the experience is critical, leading to enhanced memory formation.

Studies on consumer behavior show that negative reviews about a product are often seen as more credible and influential than positive reviews. This illustrates:

The Negativity Dominance Effect. The Negativity Dominance Effect specifically describes how negative information and negative evaluations tend to outweigh positive ones in forming judgments or decisions.

If a memory is recalled with high emotional intensity, where does the brain typically retrieve the contextual details of the event (the 'who, what, when')?

Hippocampus. The hippocampus is crucial for encoding and retrieving episodic (contextual) details of events. Its connectivity with the emotion-charged amygdala makes emotional memories highly contextualized.

Which effect is sometimes considered the opposite of the Negativity Bias, describing the tendency to recall pleasant events from the past more vividly than unpleasant ones?

The Rosy Retrospection. Rosy Retrospection is the phenomenon where people tend to rate past events more positively than they rated those same events when they occurred, often forgetting negative aspects.

Researchers suggest that negative words in language (like 'pain' or 'war') are processed by the brain faster and with greater resource allocation than equivalent positive words. This is evidence of:

Threat Prioritization. Threat Prioritization means the brain is hardwired to process stimuli related to potential harm faster, regardless of whether the stimuli is physical (a snake) or symbolic (a word like 'danger').

If you receive feedback at work that includes nine compliments and one harsh criticism, you are likely to dwell on the criticism for days. This illustrates the concept of:

Emotional Weighting. Emotional Weighting refers to the greater significance and longevity that negative information carries compared to positive information, causing us to dwell on the negative.

When examining infants' reactions, studies have shown that infants respond with greater distress and faster avoidance to negative stimuli (like sudden loud noises) than to novel positive stimuli. This suggests the negativity bias is:

Innate and present early in development.. Evidence from infancy suggests the preferential processing of negative stimuli is an innate, biologically driven survival mechanism.

In political polling, voters tend to remember a candidate's negative campaigning (attacks, scandals) more vividly than their positive policy achievements. This memory distortion is a clear example of:

The Negativity Bias. Negative information is sticky. Scandals and attacks are emotionally charged, ensuring they are encoded deeply and retrieved easily, often overriding positive achievements.

What is the term for the brain's attempt to reduce the impact of painful or negative memories over time by altering or selectively forgetting specific details?

Repression. Repression, in Freudian terms, is the unconscious mechanism of excluding distressing thoughts, memories, or feelings from the conscious mind. While debated, selective forgetting or alteration of negative affect is common.

Research by Paul Rozin and Edward Royzman, key researchers on the negativity bias, concluded that negative potency manifests in how many ways?

Four ways (learning, memory, decision-making, and person perception). Rozin and Royzman identified four main manifestations: negative potency in learning, memory, judgment/decision-making, and person impression formation.

When people are asked to judge the overall feeling of a past experience, they often give disproportionate weight to the worst (most negative) moment. This is described by the:

Peak-End Rule. The Peak-End Rule suggests that people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (most intense, often negative) and at its end, rather than the total sum or duration.

Does meditation or mindfulness practice typically increase or decrease the intensity of the Negativity Bias over time?

Tends to decrease it by regulating emotional reactivity.. Mindfulness training aims to reduce emotional reactivity to negative stimuli and improve metacognitive awareness, thereby lessening the automatic hold of the negativity bias.

Compared to positive information, negative information generally requires:

More cognitive attention and deeper processing.. Because negative stimuli signal potential threat, the brain dedicates more cognitive resources (attention and processing depth) to fully analyze and encode the information for future avoidance.

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Why Bad is Stronger Than Good: The Negativity Bias Quiz

Explore the psychology behind why negative memories are encoded more strongly than positive ones, involving the amygdala and evolutionary survival instincts.

25 Questions•20 Mins•Medium