BookShared
  • MEMBER AREA    
  • The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It

    (By John Tierney)

    Book Cover Watermark PDF Icon Read Ebook
    ×
    Size 23 MB (23,082 KB)
    Format PDF
    Downloaded 612 times
    Last checked 10 Hour ago!
    Author John Tierney
    “Book Descriptions: The most important book at the borderland of psychology and politics that I have ever read.--Martin E. P. Seligman, Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at that University of Pennsylvania and author of Learned Optimism

    Why are we devastated by a word of criticism even when it's mixed with lavish praise? Because our brains are wired to focus on the bad. This negativity effect explains things great and small: why countries blunder into disastrous wars, why couples divorce, why people flub job interviews, how schools fail students, why football coaches stupidly punt on fourth down. All day long, the power of bad governs people's moods, drives marketing campaigns, and dominates news and politics.

    Eminent social scientist Roy F. Baumeister stumbled unexpectedly upon this fundamental aspect of human nature. To find out why financial losses mattered more to people than financial gains, Baumeister looked for situations in which good events made a bigger impact than bad ones. But his team couldn't find any. Their research showed that bad is relentlessly stronger than good, and their paper has become one of the most-cited in the scientific literature.

    Our brain's negativity bias makes evolutionary sense because it kept our ancestors alert to fatal dangers, but it distorts our perspective in today's media environment. The steady barrage of bad news and crisismongering makes us feel helpless and leaves us needlessly fearful and angry. We ignore our many blessings, preferring to heed--and vote for--the voices telling us the world is going to hell.

    But once we recognize our negativity bias, the rational brain can overcome the power of bad when it's harmful and employ that power when it's beneficial. In fact, bad breaks and bad feelings create the most powerful incentives to become smarter and stronger. Properly understood, bad can be put to perfectly good use.

    As noted science journalist John Tierney and Baumeister show in this wide-ranging book, we can adopt proven strategies to avoid the pitfalls that doom relationships, careers, businesses, and nations. Instead of despairing at what's wrong in your life and in the world, you can see how much is going right--and how to make it still better.”

    Google Drive Logo DRIVE
    Book 1

    The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

    ★★★★★

    Yascha Mounk

    Book 1

    The Master Builder: How the New Science of the Cell Is Rewriting the Story of Life

    ★★★★★

    Alfonso Martinez Arias

    Book 1

    Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

    ★★★★★

    Charles Duhigg

    Book 1

    Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

    ★★★★★

    Yuval Noah Harari

    Book 1

    Tribal: Mastering the Cultural Codes That Drive Human Behavior

    ★★★★★

    Michael Morris

    Book 1

    End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration

    ★★★★★

    Peter Turchin

    Book 1

    Plays Well with Others: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Relationships Is (Mostly) Wrong

    ★★★★★

    Eric Barker

    Book 1

    Good Reasonable People: The Psychology Behind America's Dangerous Divide

    ★★★★★

    Keith Payne

    Book 1

    Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing, Including You; Embracing Life’s Instability with Rugged Flexibility―a Practical Model for Resilience

    ★★★★★

    Brad Stulberg

    Book 1

    The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution

    ★★★★★

    Greg Lukianoff

    Book 1

    You Are Not So Smart

    ★★★★★

    David McRaney

    Book 1

    Arta manipulării

    ★★★★★

    Kevin Dutton