We are 'predisposed' to value the negative more.

So, for example:

• Negative stimuli produce more neuronal activity than positive ones.
• Responses to threats and unpleasant things are faster and more intense than those provided by opportunities and pleasures.
• Negative events are stored in long-term memory immediately, while positive events require us to actively think about them for an estimated time of 5 to 20 seconds. In this way, they are stored in long-term memory. In addition, negative events return to memory more easily.
• We focus more attention on negative events than on pleasant ones.
• Having a good day does not influence how the next day will be, while a bad day does tend to predispose our future mood.
• Negative emotions, bad parents and harmful feedback have more impact than positive emotions, exemplary parents and excellent feedback.
• Negative information is processed with higher priority than positive information.
• Of the emotionally charged words we say to ourselves, 62% are negative, and 32% are positive.
• We tend to think that those who say negative or bitter things are more intelligent than those who proclaim positive things.
• It's harder for us to enjoy something if we know it's flawed. A great car becomes a broken vehicle just because it has a button that occasionally sticks.
• Negative events have twice as much influence on our daily happiness as positive events.
• The discomfort of losing money is more intense than the joy of winning it. In other words, it hurts more to lose €100 than to win it.
• Given that tendency, there is what is called prospection theory, which means that when choosing what we are going to do, if there is a known risk, we are more likely to act only to avoid harm than to achieve benefit.

Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson says that "our brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive experiences."

It is somewhat reassuring that our upbringing and society cannot be blamed for this. According to research on 3-month-old babies, they process negativity in the same way as adults.

Why this predisposition to the negative?

It is a question of evolutionary survival. Because throughout human history, dangerous or hostile circumstances have been more decisive than positive ones, humans have survived by facing them and trying to overcome them. 100,000 years ago, a brain like this was efficient at defending itself against animals and a dangerous environment. But not today, or rather: now there are other threats that require other strategies.

Yet, your brain just wants you to stay alive, not take risks, not do anything new, not change anything… as long as you stay alive. It is programmed for your mere survival; not for you to be happy. It doesn’t care if you fight with your partner , or if you’re doing poorly at work, or if you’re short. All it wants is for you to survive, not to live . But even though your brain is programmed not to change, it surprisingly has an incredible capacity for change that we barely use. And that is tremendously important at any age.

The brain's inclination toward negative bias causes us to place greater value on sadness, fear, worry, and anger. And this predisposition toward the negative has very practical consequences for society.

Let's look at examples from different areas:

• In politics, parties encourage fear of the consequences of voting for the opposite party. Thus, left-wing parties convey the danger of the right-wing government cutting social benefits. And on the other hand, right-wing parties will spread the word that the left will raise taxes.
• In the field of communication and journalism, it is well known that "good news is no news." Tragedy creates morbid curiosity and spectators.
• When raising children, we are much more likely to point out the negative and take the positive for granted. If we tell a child that he is a failure, it is very likely that this will be remembered more than a whole month of repeating how much we love him.
• The same thing happens in romantic relationships. If you are constantly telling your partner how much you love him or her, the unfortunate comment that he or she is not very attractive or that that outfit no longer fits him or her very well will never be forgotten. Being told, "I love you, even if you are a charming little fatso" can be terrifying. What do you think he or she will value more: loving and charming, or that you called him or her fat? Gottman, an American psychologist known for his studies of couples, proposes that for a marriage to work, positive interactions have to outweigh bad ones by a ratio of 5 to 1. If this ratio decreases, the relationship has a high probability of failing. So take note: the long-term success of a relationship depends on trying not to do things wrong, rather than doing them right. The same thing happens in the sexual aspect: a sexual dysfunction has more impact on the marital bond than a healthy and optimal functioning, because we expect everything to go well, to be "normal" and to please us. McCarthy believes that when sex is going well in a marriage, it accounts for 15-20% of the variance in the couple's bond, but if sex is bad or non-existent, then it accounts for 50-75%. Bad sexual experiences, therefore, weigh much more than good ones.
• In learning it is also very revealing: it is more effective if you highlight the mistake than if you praise something well done.
• In the workplace, Cliff Nass , a communications professor at Stanford University, suggests that bosses, if they are going to praise an employee, do so after the criticism rather than before, because by doing so afterward, our brains have already entered into maximum attention. So instead of saying, "Your report is excellent, but I don't like the topic you chose," it would be better to say, "I don't like the topic you chose (then we become more alert and listen more attentively), but your report is excellent."
• In ethical terms, learning something bad about someone you know carries far more weight than learning something admirable. A bad reputation is easy to build and very difficult to change, while a good reputation takes time to build and is lost with just one bad move.
• In terms of health, a study of cancer patients found that optimism did not clearly predict survival, but pessimism did predict mortality in younger patients. However, other studies have found that it is pessimism, not optimism, that predicts a good course of the disease. In short: poor health influences our happiness; but if it is good, its effect is small or goes unnoticed.