DailyPost 265
NEGATIVITY BIAS
While we all talk of positivity in life, our actions suggest to the contrary. With electronic, print, social media, family & friends generally feeding us with negativity on a daily basis, most of us seem to be stuck up in a mindset, which has been aptly termed as Negativity Bias. This is the tendency to give more importance to negative information & experiences rather than positive ones. In reality it is making matters from bad to worse, feeding into our fears further. When we see the world through a prism of negativity, the world would certainly look that way, shutting down all our positive thinking & an urge to make an effort for meaningful things.
Chances of dying a violent death dropped five hundred times since the Middle Ages. You wouldn’t realise that if you watch CNN or any such channel, beaming HD images of every feud & fatality over & over again, straight to our living rooms. Daimandis & Kotler in their best selling book titled Abundance have emphasised this dichotomy of our existence.
Kahneman says, “When people believe the world’s falling apart, its often an anchoring problem.” However, with whatever facilitation & support provided by the world, we have to anchor our own world & our own life. Non-anchoring issues can take us further downhill, reaching a point of no return. The bubble of negativity pervades all aspects of our life, society & at times the nation.
Though merit yields huge dividends in our educational system, with no favour or strings attached, yet the feeling is that only money & connections prevail. We have enough negative examples. The negative example gets ingrained in our minds as it already possesses a negative bias. The Gennext has to be freed of this bias to make them dream & achieve. From Steve Jobs to Sreedharan there are examples abound to create this much needed change.
TO SURGE AHEAD IN LIFE, SHED NEGATIVITY BIAS.
Sanjay Sahay