Battling your way out of negativity

Alison Ledgerwood joined the Department of Psychology at UC Davis in 2008 after completing her PhD in social psychology at New York University. She is interested in understanding how people think, and how they can think better. Her research, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, investigates how certain ways of thinking about an issue tend to stick in people's heads.

This short TED talk sheds some light on a phenomena called negativity bias. Negativity bias refers to “the tendency for humans to pay more attention or give more weight to negative experiences over positive ones.”

Allison Ledgerwood, professor of psychology at UC Davis, argues that once you view things in a negative light, it takes work to get unstuck.

As I watched this TED talk, my mind was instantly cast toward the dangers of ingratitude and discouragement in ministry. Or to put it positively, Ledgerwood’s talk underscored the importance of expressing gratitude and training our mind to dwell upon the good things God has done (Philippians 4:8).

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