What is the Positivity Bias and How Does it Work?
Humans innately are negative first due to the negativity bias.
The negativity bias was passed down from our ancient ancestors.
For our ancient ancestors, surviving was more important than remembering the good things in life.
One way to survive was by being paranoid.
By being negative, they were hyper-alert to threats.
Fast forward to 2024.
Times have changed.
We are not always in a constant state of danger, have food in our fridge, and a roof over our heads.
Why the negativity?
It’s because we are carrying old-school programs into a new-school world.
What is the Positivity Bias?
The positivity bias is to focus more on the positives over the negatives.
That is not to say that we don’t have negative thoughts…
It’s just that we don’t focus on them more than the positives.
A creator will get 10 comments.
- 8 are positive and 2 are negative.
All they can dwell on are the 2 negative comments.
They soon build a blindness for the 8 positive comments.
In the future, they will create a feedback loop for the same behavior.
Once they post a video, they actively look for the bad comments to feel a certain type of way.
Imagine the opposite behavior.
- Where they focus on the 8 more than the 2.
That will lead to a tremendous change in confidence.
Imagine 1 comment is nice while 9 comments are mean.
That happens more often than you think.
Imagine if the creator focuses more on the 1 nice comment than the 9 mean ones.
That will lead to more confidence.
‘Well, it can lead to more delusion too, Armani.’
That’s true.
Sometimes, people are trolling us.
Other times, they provide valuable information.
How do we distinguish between the 2?
Being Realistic
When activating the positivity bias, we want to be realistic.
To do that, we practice gratitude.
We are grateful for what we have vs what we desire to have.
When we are grateful for what we have, we start off with reality.
We see the things that we have been overlooking.
Once we do that, we want to keep up the practice of gradually looking for at least 1 good thing in the day.
‘What’s the big deal about gratitude anyways?’
The biggest thing gratitude does is that it changes the mind from:
- Negativity bias -> positivity bias.
Whenever you make the choice to be grateful for something, that choice is all the brain hears.
We consciously did something.
You can be on autopilot on a bunch of negative thoughts.
- How you and your girl had an argument.
- The time Billy stole your candy money as a kid.
- How your parents keep lecturing you.
Then you interrupt yourself with:
‘Let me have one grateful thought.’
You have a grateful thought.
What you did in that moment was:
- Notice you were being negative.
- Interrupted yourself.
- Introduced a grateful thought grounded in reality.
This seems like something small, but it has ripple effects.
Trust me, bro.
Negativity is Not Always Bad
I think negative energy is good.
Being paranoid allows you to look around the corners.
However, being constantly negative is not only bad for your psyche but also for your social intelligence.
One trait of a lot of winners is that their minds have a stickiness factor to their wins.
That’s why the winners win more.
They have the right attitude that magnetizes them to keep going even when the world seems to be against them.
You can see what is going on in their surroundings, but you can’t see what’s going on in their mind.
Their mind is actively choosing at least 1 thought that is grounded in reality.
This thought is something that makes them feel powerful.
Then they can think whatever negative thought they want.
Something that we consciously do slowly wipes away a lot of our unconscious thoughts.
Negativity is not always bad.
It is only bad when you go from having negative moments to becoming a negative person.
The Best Time to Cultivate a Positivity Bias
The best time to cultivate a positivity bias is when you are going through a bad time.
During these bad times, it’s hard to consciously think of anything positive.
A while back when I was starting ArmaniTalks, I was having a series of bad weeks.
I kept getting bootlegged by online pirates and it was cutting into my revenue.
Whenever I hit up the platforms to do something about it, they said they couldn’t do anything about it.
They said that online pirates and online businesses went together like peanut butter and jelly.
I was taking Ls left and right.
Imagine you work a full-time job, and your manager just forgets to give you a series of paychecks.
When you complain about it, they tell you to deal with it.
That’s how I felt.
That feeling went on for a while.
Until one day, I noticed something.
Why am I putting all my eggs in one basket?
Let me put my content on another platform!
That’s what I did for the next few weeks.
Soon, I began getting sales on another platform.
That tough moment taught me to never be reliant on one platform.
I see creators who never learn this lesson.
They are 8-12 years into their career and only building on 1 platform.
Then on the 12th year, they get kicked off for a silly mistake and their livelihood is destroyed.
I learned this powerful lesson so early in my journey.
And for that, I’m grateful.
Lead with Positivity, Fact Check with Negativity
Doesn’t matter how you twist the data…
The positive folks will always be the industry leaders.
No matter which industry it is.
- Technology, business, music, etc.
Look at the head honcho.
They are positive.
They don’t undermine negative thoughts.
They allow themselves to feel every emotion.
However, when they are pressed…
They will always have a bias for the positive moments.
And that’s a bias I am willing to stand behind.
For more insights into emotional intelligence, check out the Armani Archives EQ Edition
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