The Sneaky Psychological Bias That Undermines Even The Best Relationships
Overcome your ingrained negativity bias.
Peopleimages.com - YuriArcurs | Canva Imagine scripting a perfect day with your partner. On a beautiful Sunday morning hike, you take a dip at a refreshing waterfall and have a snack while feeling connected and energized. You head back home, and they say, “Why can’t we do this all the time?”
The words alone are innocent enough, but you hear something else. The tone of their “never-ending” complaint says you work too much.
Suddenly, you react, “Maybe we could if I didn’t have to work so much to pick up your slack.” In a flash, the moment defines the next few days as you both retreat into bitter silence.
The sneaky psychological bias that undermines even the best relationships is a negativity bias and here's why:
1. It causes us to lose mindfulness of what our partner is doing right
Humans have what is known as a “negativity bias.” In short, the bad stuff outweighs the good stuff, as shown by a study in Personality and Social Psychology Review. Yet, focusing on what your partner is doing right can be very powerful. The more you focus on the good, the more good there will be to focus on. Energy follows attention.
Negativity bias not only includes what you say to your partner but also how you think about your partner. Thoughts magnify the experience.
2. Replace negativity bias by shifting your focus
Joshua Resnick via Shutterstock
Sit down and write out everything you appreciate, admire, and love about your partner. Include everything from physical attributes to personality traits to behaviors. Continue adding to the list regularly.
3. Replace negativity bias by sharing at least three appreciations
Make a point throughout the day to notice things you appreciate about your partner, then make a point to say what you love and appreciate about them every day.
Start by saying, “One thing I appreciate about you is….” And deepen the appreciation by sharing, “When you do that, I feel….”
The Journal of Happiness Studies explains how this ritual of appreciation can transform relationships. A hidden benefit of this rule is we can discover many wonderful things about each other.
We gravitate towards and dwell on the one thing that did not go well rather than the five that went well. It’s too common for negativity to consume our relationships and distort our thinking.
In committed relationships especially, compliments dwindle, and tones get harsher. We become less forgiving and loving and more critical and shaming. The charming blemishes we may have embraced early on transform into glaring character flaws.
We now know something about the origins of this sensitivity to the negative: Any negative message — words, tone, facial expression — triggers our survival drive and triggers our anxiety, as supported by research in the Advances In Experimental Social Psychology Journal.
Sitophotostock via Shutterstock
When we are scared, we automatically protect ourselves by withdrawing from the scene or countering with a putdown, and that makes everything worse. It is difficult to see beyond our partner's wrongdoing.
They are stuck in a negativity bias (anxiety about what might happen to them) and have one goal for being there: to have their partner “see the light” (of all their wrongdoings) and “be fixed,” oblivious to their contributions.
It’s why we immediately move into one of our core teachings around intentionality. We need to strengthen the intentional muscle to override the reactive muscle. One way to do this is through the appreciation process. Research supported by the American Psychological Association explains how appreciations help us slow down reactivity by engaging the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that regulates anxiety.
Most of us are guilty of falling into the trap of negativity. It can sometimes take an enormous effort to use the muscles we so seldom use.
It’s much easier to be reactive and negative. It’s much harder to be intentional and positive, at least at first.
Once we overcome the ingrained bias, like any atrophied muscle, intentionality becomes stronger and automatic. Appreciations flow. Relationships thrive, and we begin to identify each other as a source of pleasure once again.
Harville Hendrix, Ph. D., is a couples therapist with over 40 years of experience as a counselor, educator, clinical trainer, author, and public lecturer and has received many awards for his work with couples. He and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, co-created Imago Relationship Therapy, a therapy for couples now practiced by over 2,200 certified therapists in 30 countries.