Why the Glass Always Looks Half Empty

We all want to feel good.  We want to have close relationships with our friends and family, a sense of meaning and purpose in the world, experience achievement, and to feel love and be loved.  All of these are part of human flourishing.  However, past events that have left an emotional mark on our psyche continue to cause us distress and get in the way of us flourishing, even when we are not consciously aware of them or their impact.  Fortunately, there are things we can do to heal past traumas and move down the path towards flourishing.

Article At A Glance:

·        As humans, we have a biologically determined “negativity bias.”

·        All of us have experienced past distressing events that continue to impact our current functioning.

·        Some of the ways we can do this are through acts of kindness, actively combating our negativity bias, and keeping a “gratitude journal.”

Our “Negativity Bias”

As human beings we have what is called a “negativity bias.”   Our mind’s are naturally on the look out for bad things to happen and over the course of human history this as served us well.  Imagine two cavepeople, let’s call them Ug and Glug, walking into a dark cave and they hear an unexpected sound.  Ug, who has this negativity bias, is alarmed that it might be a sabertoothed tiger and gets the hell out of there.  Glug thinks it is all good and decides to continue into the dark cave.  Well, you can imagine what happens next.  Glud is lunch for the sabertoothed tiger while Ug lives on to spread her genes for generations to come. 

Of course, the world looks a lot different today then it did for Ug and Glug.  Most are not living on the edge of survival every day.  However, this relative comfort is brand new in the history of human cultural evolution and our biology, which has been programed over tens of thousands of years, is still very much like Ug and Glug.  The difference, of course, is that while Ug’s threat detection system was activated when she suspected a sabertoothed tiger around the corner, ours are activated by our email inbox.  So this ability, while critical for our survival, in most cases is not as adaptive as it once was.  So today, in the relatively benign world that most of us occupy, in order to truly flourish we must break the hammerlock our negativity bias holds on us. 

We All Have Traumas

These days, most of us are familiar with the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, a condition that often elicits thoughts and images of war veterans who experienced atrocities of war that have severely scarred them psychologically.  And as our understanding of PTSD has evolved many of us will also associate it with other psychologically traumatizing events such as sexual assault, violent crimes, child abuse, car accidents, and more.  In the field of psychology, these are often referred to as big “T” traumas and they can have an incredible impact on us not only psychologically but physiologically as they alter nervous system structures and functions. 

While not rising to the level of big “T” traumas, all of us have experienced events in our lives that we might categorize as small “t” traumas.  These are events, often ones that we experience repeatedly, that while not life threatening nevertheless leave an indelible mark on our lives.  For many of us, these include “mommy” and “daddy” issues.  In other words, the hurtful things our parents said and did (or did not do)  when we were growing up.  However, these small “t” traumas are not limited to experiences with our moms and dads but can include any event or series of events that left us emotionally “scarred.” 

Post Traumatic Growth

While most of us have at least heard of post traumatic stress, what about “post traumatic growth?”  This is something Dr. Martin Seligman and his team at University of Pennsylvania have been investigating. What Dr. Seligman and his colleagues learned when studying and developing the theory of learned helplessness was not that trauma produced a sense of helplessness but inescapable trauma produced helplessness.  In other words, when an animal was conditioned to believe that there was nothing they could do to avoid or escape a bad event they eventually came to believe they had no control over the event and stopped trying.  In contrast, those who experienced the same harmful event but had a way to escape did not developed a sense of helplessness. 

This was a huge finding in shaping our understanding of trauma and how to treat it.  Our body’s intuitive knowing did what was needed to adapt to and keep us safe in that moment, whether that was to fight back or to physically and emotionally shut down.  Our biology responded in ways to keep us physically and psychologically safe and we have the power and control to keep ourselves safe again.  Knowing this, we are also able to move out of our protective state and re-engage with the world in a way that promotes our flourishing. 

The Power of Optimistic Thinking

One of the keys to feeling a sense of control over the events in our lives is a sense of optimism.  Do you see the glass as half empty or half full?  Optimists are less likely to feel a sense of  helplessness than are pessimists. 

·        When a bad event occurs, do you have a tendency to view it as temporary or permanent?

·        Another factor is whether one perceives bad events as specific situation or if they believe bad events are everywhere (i.e., pervasive). 

·        The third factor is whether you attribute the bad event to something about yourself (i.e., personal) or if you ascribe the reason for the event to something outside of yourself. 

Those who are pessimistic and most likely to be impacted by traumatic events (i.e., learned helplessness) tend to believe “this will never end, it happens all the time, and there must be something wrong with me.”  In contrast, those who believe the event will not last forever, does not affect other parts of their lives, and is due to factors outside of themselves are often immune to the potentially traumatic event. These individuals are also much more likely to believe they have some degree of control over their lives and avoiding such events again in the future.  And as a result, they are often resilient in the face of otherwise distressing events. 

What Dr. Seligman and his colleagues have also found is that people who carry pessimistic views are much more likely to experience depression and anxiety.  So, if we have a natural negativity bias that has been built into our biology for tens of thousands of years, what can we do about it?  The good news is there is a lot we can do.  There are specific steps we can take to combat our negativity bias and promote greater flourishing.

Filling the Glass

One of the ways we can protect ourselves against our negativity bias, is to actively counter catastrophic thinking.  We learn to recognize thoughts that imply a problem is permanent, pervasive, and personal (i.e., it is my fault).  Since feeling helpless contributes to feelings of depression and optimism is a protective factor against feeling helpless, then it makes sense that taking this and other steps to cultivate optimism (e.g., keeping a gratitude journal) builds resilience and protects us against feelings of depression. 

I am not saying this is something you should do when you are feeling depressed.  I am saying this to everyone who wants to protect themselves against feeling depressed.  Again, I am  not here for those experiencing a mental illness.  If that is the case, you need to seek professional help.   I am writing this for everyone who wants to be mentally healthy.  I am writing this for those who want to flourish in their lives – to feel happier, to love harder, to perform better.  I am writing this for you.

Perhaps one of the fasted and most powerful ways to bring about greater positive emotion and wellbeing is by doing acts of kindness for others.  Certainly, this could be something big like volunteering time for a charitable organization whose mission aligns with your values, but it does not need to be.  It can be as small as letting someone go in front of you in line, opening the door for someone, or paying for the person behind you in the Starbucks drive through (it is almost weird  how nice it feels). 

Now, I am not here to change your values.  Maybe positive emotions is not what’s most important to you.  That is great.  It does not need to be.  Maybe your more interested in relationships or performance at work or on the field.  Wonderful.  We will be diving deep into those topics as well.  However, if that is the case, what I also want to leave you with is the fact that increasing positive emotions will also manifest in improved relationships and performance.  Elements of well-being do not function independently.  They are all interconnected. 

So, we discussed a number of things we can do to increase positive emotions.  We can bring greater awareness to our catastrophic thinking patterns (i.e., permanent, pervasive, and personal) and actively combat those thoughts, reminding ourselves that they are not true and are simply a manifestation of our genetic negativity bias.  We can also remind ourselves that while my biology is trying to keep me safe and out of danger, you are in fact not in any danger, the problem will not last forever, it is situation specific, and it is not my fault.  We can also seek activities that have a deeper sense of meaning and purpose and an easy way to achieve this is by helping others.  This brings a greater sense of satisfaction and wellbeing than doing something for ourselves and it can be very simple like holding open the door for the person entering a building behind you or paying for the person behind you in the Starbucks drive through. 

My Challenge for You

I’d like to leave you with a practice for the week.  This is a practice Dr. Seligman and his colleagues scientifically demonstrated to bring about greater states of flourishing.  The practice is a gratitude journal but is keeping a journal feels weird, do not worry about it.  You do not actually have to keep a journal.  What I’m suggesting you do is, at the end of the day, write down three good things that happened that day.  They can be big things or small things.  Just three things that day that were positive.  This actively combats our natural negativity bias.  But again, my writings are not about elevating suffering alone.  They are about actively promoting well-being and flourishing. 

Dr. Seligman’s research found that those who write down three things that went well during the day, every day for a week, not only feel better at the end of that week but also feel better after 6 months.  Plus, unlike other things that are good for us that we try to will ourselves to do, it actually feels good to reflect on the things that went well during the day.  And because it feels good, it is much easier to make a habit out of it that other activities, such as dieting, that we know may be good for us bet we rarely find the will and stamina to stick with.  So try it today.  Write down three things that went well.  You do not have to keep it . That is not the point.  The point is to actively focus your primary attention on the things in your life that are going well.