Why are people naturally inclined toward negativity?

[Winston]

Why are people naturally inclined toward the negative?

Have you noticed that it's too easy to become fixated on the negative or become addicted to it and feed off it? Yet one has to work hard to stay positive? Why is that?

Why is human nature and our minds naturally fixated on sliding down into negativity? Why not the other way? Is there a reason for that?

Consider this: If you do 9 good things and 1 bad thing, people will remember the bad thing and forget the good things you did. That's human nature. Also, if someone spreads a negative lie about you, people will be quick to believe it, even without any evidence, as though they were eager to believe the worst about you. Why is that?

And of course, the news media feeds off our negativity. They constantly bombard us with the most negative stories that make us see the world in the most negative way - full of stress, conflict and tragedy - never showing us all the good decent people around us. The media always wants to portray everything in the worst possible light it seems.

[MrPeabody]

I previously submitted a link on the brain research for that. The reason is because negative events are actually recorded in the emotional part of the brain by the amygdala, whereas positive events are only stored in the memory. In our evolutionary history, it was much more important to remember potentially dangerous negative events, so the memory traces are hard wired into the emotional system by the amygdala so we can react quickly if the event ever comes up again.

[Renata]

I think people dwell on the negative stuff because it stirs their emotions up & until they can come to terms with it or have some sort of resolve, only then they'll revert back to the positive stuff. The media is well aware of this so they know how to rattle our chains so to speak.

I don't dwell on the negative stuff; it just puts me in a mood i don't like... so i try to focus on what's good around me. But sometimes I tend to bottle up stuff or just ignore all the bad things that come my way. Not a good approach to the bad stuff but it works for me as a temporary fix.