Motivation and emotion/Book/2023/Negativity bias

Negativity bias:
What is the negativity bias, what are its impacts, and how can it be overcome?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Figure 1. Images of people experiencing a variety of emotions. Which ones stand out to you? Negativity bias involves increased attention to negative images.

• Define Negativity bias
• Negativity bias has been considered in the fields of economics, politics and psychology with a variety of implications
• Scenario: Erica is thirty year old female student at the University of Canberra. As part of her course, she must continually update her ePortfolio and reflect on her experiences. Many of her entries relate to difficulties like managing group work and she finds it difficult to think about the positive experiences and personal development during her time at the university. How might negativity bias account for her challenges when reflecting on her experiences throughout the course? How might this negativity bias put her at risk of other conditions? Is there any way for Erica to overcome her bias? By the end of this chapter, you should be able to answer these questions and more.

Focus questions: What is negativity bias? What are the impacts of negativity bias? How can negativity bias be overcome?

What is negativity bias?

Types of negativity bias

Types of negativity bias (Rozin & Royzman, 2001):

• Negative potency: *briefly describe potency, giving examples
• Greater steepness of negative gradients: *briefly describe greater steepness of negative gradients
• Negativity dominance: *briefly describe negativity dominance and how it is different from negative potency
• Negative differentiation: *briefly describe negative differentiation

  

  Figure 2. The occipital lobe is responsible for visual processing. BA 19 is a region of the occipital lobe that is partially responsible for visual attention.

Potential causes of negativity bias

Areas of the brain associated with negativity bias

• Brodmann area 19 (BA 19) in the occipital lobe showed increased activation when processing negative images over positive images (Norris, 2021). One of the major functions of this region is attention, which can partially account for attentional bias towards negative scenes.
• The amygdala, ventral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and anterior cingulate are activated during reactions to fear-based imagery, with these activations stronger in those with greater negativity bias (Williams et al., 2009).

Genetic factors

• 5- HTT-LPR Short allele is linked to both anxiety and depression (Williams et al., 2009)
• Individuals with the 5- HTT-LPR Short allele are more likely to exhibit negativity bias than those without this genotype (Williams et al., 2009)
• In a study, participants who experienced early stressful life experiences and had the 5- HTT-LPR Short allele were found to be at increased risk of negativity bias (Williams et al., 2009)

Conditions

• Chronic stress is implicated as a contributing factor to development or enhancement of negativity bias (Braund et al., 2019)
• Trauma and stress experienced in early life as a contributing factor (Williams et al., 2009)
• Depression and anxiety also contribute to higher levels of negativity bias (Braund et al., 2019; Williams et al., 2009)

Quick quiz

1 The ability to more easily pick out one unhappy person from a crowd of happy faces than picking out one happy person from a crowd of unhappy faces is known as:

	Greater negative differentiation
	Greater steepness of negative gradients

2 Scenario 1: While at work one day, a child spilled red dye on Sarah's new dress that she just bought for $75. The child's parents decide to go to the shop and buy Sarah the same dress as compensation. Despite the equal value of the exchange, Sarah focuses on how horrible it is that her dress was ruined. What type of negativity bias does Sarah display?

	Negative potency
	Negativity dominance

3 Which regions of the brain have been implicated in negativity bias?

	Amygdala
	Brodmann area 3 (BA 3)
	Ventral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)
	Anterior cingulate

What are the impacts of negativity bias?

Depression and anxiety

• Negativity bias not only occurs in people with anxiety and depression, but also can also predict both conditions
• Both conditions and negativity bias engage similar brain regions (Williams et al., 2009)
• Links between depression and anxiety and poor health outcomes

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

In a longitudinal study, negativity bias and Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) were found to act in a mediating role in the likelihood of people developing PTSD if they had a history of trauma and subsequently experienced an additional trauma (Webb et al., 2023). While individuals who have experienced more negative events in life may develop increased negativity bias, this same bias puts them at further risk of developing conditions like PTSD because the way in which they view future events (Webb et al., 2023). This, however, means interventions targeting negativity bias may help reduce risk factors for the development of PTSD.

Chronic stress

• Negativity bias increases likelihood of appraising situations as stressful
• Chronic stress linked to poor health outcomes

How can negativity bias be overcome?

• Mindfulness (Kiken & Shook, 2011).
• Cognitive reappraisal
• Recent proposals that psychedelics may offer benefits (Magaraggia et al., 2021)

Conclusion

• Summarise negativity bias including types and expressions of negativity bias
• Activation of various brain structures, genetic factors and mental health conditions are implicated in negativity bias
• Negativity bias can make people more likely to experience anxiety, depression, PTSD and less able to cope with stress
• Techniques that may help reduce negativity bias include mindfulness and cognitive reappraisals, with research ongoing into alternative treatments
• Wrap up by proposing answers to the questions posed in Erica's scenario from the overview

See also

• Attentional bias for emotional stimuli (Book chapter, 2020)
• Cognitive bias (Wikipedia)
• Emotion regulation and ageing (Book chapter, 2020)
• Optimism bias (Book chapter, 2021)

References

Braund, T. A., Palmer, D. M., Tillman, G., Hanna, H., & Gordon, E. (2019). Increased chronic stress predicts greater emotional negativity bias and poorer social skills but not cognitive functioning in healthy adults. Anxiety, Stress & Coping: An International Journal, 32(4), 399-411. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2019.1598555

Kiken, L. G., & Shook, N. J. (2011). Looking Up: Mindfulness Increases Positive Judgments and Reduces Negativity Bias. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(4), 425-431. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550610396585

Magaraggia, I., Kuiperes, Z., & Schreiber, R. (2021). Improving cognitive functioning in major depressive disorder with psychedelics: A dimensional approach. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 183, 107467. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2021.107467

Norris, C. J. (2021). The negativity bias, revisited: Evidence from neuroscience measures and an individual differences approach. Social Neuroscience, 16(1), 68-82. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2019.1696225

Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(4), 296–320. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2

Webb, E. K., Timmer-Murillo, S. C., Huggins, A. A., Tomas, C. W., deRoon-Cassini, T. A., & Larson, C. L. (2023). Attributional negativity bias and acute stress disorder symptoms mediate the association between trauma history and future posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 36(4), 785-795. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22942

Williams, L. M., Gatt, J. M., Schofield, P. R., Olivieri, G., Peduto, A., & Gordon, E. (2009). ‘Negativity bias’ in risk for depression and anxiety: Brain–body fear circuitry correlates, 5-HTT-LPR and early life stress. NeuroImage, 47(3), 804-814. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.05.009

External links

• Why we focus on the negatives-Roy Baumeister (YouTube)
• What is negativity bias and how can it be overcome? (Positivepsychology.com)

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