The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Tierney, the coauthor of Willpower, is a contributing editor to City Journal and writes the “Findings” science column for the New York Times. His writing has won awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Physics.
 
Roy F. Baumeister, the coauthor of Willpower, is a research psychologist at the University of Queensland who studies why normal adults think, feel, and act as they do. He is especially known for his work on self and identity; the negativity effect; social rejection and the need to belong; self-control; self-esteem; and how people find meaning in life.

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Take the bad with the good, we stoically tell ourselves. But that's not how the brain works. Our minds and lives are skewed by a fundamental imbalance that is just now becoming clear to scientists: Bad is stronger than good.

This power of bad goes by several names in the academic literature: the negativity bias, negativity dominance, or simply the negativity effect. By any name, it means the universal tendency for negative events and emotions to affect us more strongly than positive ones. We're devastated by a word of criticism but unmoved by a shower of praise. We see the hostile face in the crowd and miss all the friendly smiles. The negativity effect sounds depressing-and it often is-but it doesn't have to be the end of the story. Bad is stronger, but good can prevail if we know what we're up against.

By recognizing the negativity effect and overriding our innate responses, we can break destructive patterns, think more effectively about the future, and exploit the remarkable benefits of this bias. Bad luck, bad news, and bad feelings create powerful incentives-the most powerful, in fact-to make us stronger, smarter, and kinder. Bad can be put to perfectly good uses, but only if the rational brain understands its irrational impact. Beating bad, especially in a digital world that magnifies its power, takes wisdom and effort.

The negativity effect is a simple principle with not-so-simple consequences. When we don't appreciate the power of bad to warp our judgment, we make terrible decisions. Our negativity bias explains things great and small: how countries blunder into disastrous wars, why neighbors feud and couples divorce, how economies stagnate, why applicants flub job interviews, how schools are failing students, why football coaches punt much too often. The negativity effect destroys reputations and bankrupts companies. It promotes tribalism and xenophobia. It spreads bogus scares that have left Americans angrier and Zambians hungrier. It ignites moral panics among both liberals and conservatives. It poisons politics and elects demagogues.

Bad is universally powerful, but it is not invincible. You are most affected by the negativity effect during your younger years, when you most need to learn from failures and criticism. As you age, the need to learn diminishes while perspective increases. Old people tend to be more contented than young people because their emotions and judgments aren't as skewed by problems and setbacks. They counteract the power of bad by appreciating pleasures each day and recalling happy moments instead of dwelling on past miseries. Their lives may not seem better by objective standards (particularly if they have health problems), but they feel better and can make sounder decisions because they can afford to ignore unpleasant learning opportunities and focus on what brings joy.

That's the sort of wisdom we're promoting in this book. We'll explain how to use the power of bad when it's beneficial and overcome it when it's not. Thanks to a recent surge of studies of the negativity effect, researchers have identified strategies for coping with it. Evolution has left us vulnerable to bad, which rules a primal region of the brain in all animals, but it also has equipped the more sophisticated regions of the human brain with natural cognitive tools for withstanding bad and employing it constructively. Today these tools are more essential than ever because there are so many more skilled purveyors of fear and vitriol-the merchants of bad, as we call them, who have prospered financially and politically by frightening the public and fomenting hatred.

We'll show how to deploy the rational brain to keep bad at bay in both private and public life-in love and friendships, at home and school and work, in business and politics and government. Above all, we want to show how good can win in the end. It is not as immediately powerful and emotionally compelling as bad, but good can prevail through persistence, intelligence, and force of numbers.

By learning how the negativity bias affects you and everyone else, you see the world more realistically-and less fearfully. You can consciously override the impulses that cause crippling insecurities, panic attacks, and phobias like the fear of heights or public speaking. A phobia is a discrete illustration of the power of bad: an exaggerated reaction to the possibility of something going wrong, an irrational impulse that prevents you from enjoying life to its fullest. Phobias can be overcome, and so can more generalized problems once you understand the negativity effect.

Instead of despairing at a setback, you can look for ways to benefit from it. Instead of striving to be a perfect parent or partner, you can concentrate on avoiding the basic mistakes that matter much more than your good deeds. In any relationship, you can learn how to stop fights before they begin, or at least prevent them from spiraling out of control, by recognizing how easily a small affront can be misinterpreted and exaggerated, especially when romantic partners are trying to make sense of each other. At work, you can avoid the pitfalls that ruin careers and doom enterprises.

The upside of bad is its power to sharpen the mind and energize the will. By understanding the impact of painful feedback, you become better at dealing with criticism-at absorbing the useful lessons without being demoralized. You also become better at dispensing criticism, a rare skill. Most people, including supposed experts, don't know how to deliver bad news because they don't realize how it's received. When doctors ineptly deliver a grim diagnosis, they compound the patients' grief and confusion. When students or employees are evaluated, many teachers or supervisors deliver critiques that serve mainly to dishearten, while others just duck the problems by giving everyone good grades and evaluations. They could do their jobs more effectively with techniques that have been tested recently in schools, offices, and factories.

Criticism and penalties, when administered deftly, spur much faster progress than the everybody-gets-a-trophy approach. They inspire people to learn from their mistakes instead of continuing to jeopardize their careers and their relationships. Criticism and penalties teach people how to improve themselves and get along with others, whether they're collaborating at work, juggling family responsibilities, or trying to keep romance alive.

Properly understood, the power of bad can bring out the best in anyone.

The negativity effect is a fundamental aspect of psychology and an important truth about life, yet it was discovered only recently, and quite unexpectedly. Roy BaumeisterÕs research began, as usual, with a vague question, the sort thatÕs no longer fashionable among his fellow researchers in psychology. As an undergraduate he had wanted to become a philosopher contemplating broad questions about life, but his parents considered that too impractical a career to justify PrincetonÕs tuition, so he compromised by going into social psychology.

Once he became a professor, first at Case Western Reserve University and then at Florida State and the University of Queensland, Baumeister did his share of highly specialized research and experiments, the kind of work favored by today's journals and tenure committees. He became known for his work on self-control, social rejection, aggression, and other topics. But he also took on questions far beyond his specialties. Why is there evil? What is the self? What shapes human nature? What is the meaning of life? He answered each one in a book by surveying the literature in psychology and other disciplines to spot patterns...