Why reviews outlast praise

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However, negative comments can be harmful at any age, especially during times when we are particularly impressionable or vulnerable. “When you’re already depressed, it’s harder to bounce back, so it can be difficult to receive negative feedback,” Baumeister says.

Whether people with certain personalities are more prone to negativity than others is a hotly debated topic, Macchia says, but a recent study found “no consistent evidence” of a relationship between personality traits. a person’s personality or political ideology and negativity bias.

“We are all sensitive to negative feedback in the sense that there are no ‘stronger’ personality traits. Considering the fact that everyone receives negative feedback can help us deal with it…and could be a good strategy to protect our own sanity,” she adds. “Another useful strategy might be to view comments as more related to the person making them than to the person receiving them.”

By recognizing the negativity effect, we can ignore unwanted responses and even reap its benefits. For example, Shelley Taylor, a professor of social psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), showed that women with breast cancer sometimes form unrealistic optimistic beliefs to help them cope. These “positive illusions” are associated with mental and physical health benefits, suggesting they can help us put mind over matter when needed.

Taylor’s work also shed light on a commonly used response to negativity called minimization, which is our ability to “mitigate, minimize, and even erase the impact of that event.” For example, the cancer patients in Taylor’s study sometimes compared themselves to women who were worse off than them, to make their problem appear less significant.

Professional daredevil skydiver Felix Baumgartner might not be someone you would imagine would need to use minimization techniques to face his fears. But Michael Gervais, a psychologist who works with Olympians, used them to help Baumgartner achieve his goal of becoming the first skydiver to break the sound barrier. According to interviews he gave, Baumgartner was afraid of being trapped in his specially designed costume. Instead of looking at him negatively as a potential prison, Gervais taught him to visualize how the costume could turn him into a superhero, amplifying the pros and diminishing the cons. Using a combination of breathing techniques and a form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Baumgartner was able to build his endurance in the combination, achieve his goal, and become “Fearless Felix”.

Few of us will share Baumgartner’s lofty ambitions, but we can all learn from him. By ignoring the negative and emphasizing the positive, we might have a better chance of achieving our dreams.

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