How Does Your Negativity Bias Impact Your Relationship?

Last week I shared a favorite quote from Jim Rohn, “Direction determines destination.” We talked about planes that are off course 90% of the time they’re in the air, but still manage to land in the appointed destination.

The critical element for a pilot is to keep refining that vector of direction, a little north…oh! Overshot it. Now a little south. North again. South a smidge. Until your destination is inevitable.

Similarly, when you’re able to focus on your direction—and all the tiny vectors of habits we talk about on this show—the destination of happily ever after takes care of itself.

But what happens when that negative voice pipes up saying, “You never flush the toilet.” Or “You never kiss me hello.”

 

How is your negativity bias impacting your relationship and taking you off course?

I had a client who came to me complaining, “The magic is gone. I don’t know if my wife loves me anymore. And, if I’m being honest,” he said, “I don’t know if I love her anymore either.”

“Why don’t you get a divorce?” I asked him. I ask this question a lot. Not because I think divorce is a good idea for this man, but because the question wakes people up to realize what’s really at stake. And it wakes up people’s agency. You have the power to choose your life.

“I don’t want a divorce,” he said. “I really respect her. We have such a long history together. Not to mention, kids. I just want to be happier. I want to feel in love.”

He and his wife had fallen prey to dreaded, but subtle, Negativity Bias.

All of us have a natural proclivity to notice what’s wrong. What’s not working. What bugs you.

This man and his wife fell out of love because over the past decade, they gave free reign to that negativity bias: only noticing what’s wrong with daily life and wrong with each other, and never looking for all the stuff that’s going right.

 

What IS a Negativity Bias?

You’re going to focus on the negative stuff first. We are biologically programmed to notice what’s frightening, uncomfortable, or out of sync with our environment.

Your brain is naturally biased to answer the question, “What’s wrong here?”

The ability to focus on what’s wrong—or what’s dangerous—kept our ancestors safe from the Saber-Toothed Tiger on the wild savannah.

Your negativity bias is a great tool when it comes to keeping you safe.

But I’ve never seen a Saber-Toothed Tiger. Have you?

There just aren’t a ton of things that are as risky to us today in the way that our ancestors were threatened by that Saber-Toothed Tiger. But our body responds as if we are in ultimate danger to things as mild as my partner left their dishes scattered on the counter rather than loading them into the dishwasher. Oh no!

 

There’s a difference between a danger and an inconvenience.

But your negativity bias isn’t very educated about those distinctions.

When you respond to inconveniences as if they are a dire threat, you not only spike your cortisol, you also damage your relationship. You see your dish-leaving-partner as a threat rather than as an annoyance.

When my client and his wife regularly let their negativity biases frame up the picture of each new day, their home life became fraught with “dangers.”

Dishes undone! Shoes left in the hallway rather than put away! A 15-minute late arrival sounded the alarm of a potential car crash! Or lack of devotion! Over and over, and without even knowing it, this couple had triggered negative experiences for each other.

So what’s to be done?

 

3 steps to turn that negativity bias around

Today I’m giving you 3 steps to turn that negativity bias around.

The three steps to curb the insidious power of your negativity bias are:

1. Name it
2. Tame it
3. Muscle up

The best way to deal with your negativity bias is simply to name it. I talk to myself when I find myself wearing those negative glasses. It sounds like this: Hello Rebecca who’s upset about the dishes abandoned on the counter. I know you think this dish-debacle signals the end of your marriage because when David leaves his dishes laying around, you feel like he doesn’t care about you.

But, I’d like to put this in perspective. Is it really true that David’s rogue coffee cup means he doesn’t care about you? What if it just means he got distracted? Have you ever gotten distracted Rebecca?

Rebecca, do you think you could muscle up and put that rogue coffee cup into the dishwasher yourself?

Did you hear me use the three steps?

 

Step 1: Name it

First, I named my negativity bias at work. I know you’re worried about the abandoned dishes.

Second, I tamed the negative bias which takes a lot of the reactivity out of it. I tame the alarm by searching for the MESSAGE my negativity bias wants to offer me. After all, this alarm system was designed to protect me. What message are you offering me? I ask my negativity bias. Let’s chat about it.

This question reveals the fear in the warning my negativity bias is trying to signal.

The question—what are you warning me about?—allows me to evaluate the negativity bias alarm.

Don’t be surprised if you find a fear that is completely out of balance with the behavior at hand. Remember, your negativity bias was designed for Saber-Tooth tiger spotting.

I find mine: If my husband doesn’t care about the dishes, he must not care about me! See how ridiculously out of proportion it is? Yet this happens all the time. Your saber-toothed tiger sized alarms are likely to be ridiculously out of whack. What’s great about naming them is that you can laugh the minute you question them.

 

Step 2: Tame it

But sometimes the question—what are you warning me about?—isn’t quite enough to stop the alarm bells from ringing. Not completely ridiculous. So you get seduced by the warning and you begin to believe it…unless you are a tenacious tamer.

Sometimes my answer to the question—what are you warning me about?—will be, You’re going to get taken advantage of. This guy is gonna make you do all the work in this relationship. When I get a message like that, I’m truly seduced. I believe every word of my negativity bias, unless I press ahead with taming.

I use another taming technique. I’ll ask myself, Is it really true that David leaving the rogue coffee cup on the counter is a signal he’ll never be helpful?

When you are able to first name your negative bias at work, then tame it to a truthful-sized suggestion rather than a Saber-Toothed tiger alarm, you are faced with a choice.

 

Step 3: Muscle up

Step 3 invites you to muscle up when it comes to the scary life that your negativity bias tends to see.

It takes me 4 extra seconds to round up my husband’s dishes and put them into the dishwasher. 4 seconds. How do I know this? Because this was the evidence my powerful and persistent negativity bias needed in order to stop sounding the alarm each time I saw those dishes. My negativity bias wouldn’t stop alarming me until I measured the effort in seconds.

4 seconds.

Then I assured my negativity bias I was ready and willing to muscle up and take those 4 seconds to put David’s rogue dishes into the dishwasher.

You might not always find it easy to muscle up. You might think it’s unfair that I am the one who puts my husband’s rogue dishes into the dishwasher.

But then you meet my client who has fallen out of love. Whose wife has fallen out of love with him.

4 seconds to deal with the dishes? Or stew on the danger they represent? This is the invisible toxicity of your negativity bias. That negativity bias will make you think these 4 second are herculean. That there’s no possible way you can take them on and win at life.

And then you’re lonely. No longer in love. Hmmm. Worth it? That’s for you to decide. But let’s look further at the wide-ranging power of the negativity bias before you decide.

 

Negative bias: This safety scanner is a momentum killer

When I acknowledge what my negativity bias noticed—oh horrors! Dishes scattered about!—I can also neutralize the negativity. I can thank my negativity bias that is watchful for danger. But I can also train that negativity bias to ride in the backseat, rather than driving the car that is my life.

Thanks for the warning about the scattered dishes, but the reality is that David was just in a hurry as he left. How about we cut him some slack?

If you don’t consciously notice your negativity bias, that bias will wreak havoc on your relationship. Historically in my marriage, I actually got ANGRY about the scattered dishes. Angry! Isn’t that fascinating? But that’s the reptilian part of your brain who REACTS instead of RESPONDING to stimuli in your environment.

Your negativity bias is capable of three responses: Fight. Flight. Freeze. My anger at the scattered dishes was a Fight response: No fair! I don’t deserve this work of lading this dishwasher! Hackles and fists up.

 

Fight. Flight. Freeze. All from your negativity bias

I naturally respond with a fight. But I’m not above a freeze response. I’ve been known to give my husband the cold shoulder because he left those dishes scattered about. Have you ever gotten (or given) the cold shoulder when you didn’t like the way your partner behaved? This is a Freeze response.

Some people are conflict avoidant and they Fly away from a dirty dish moment. They might load the dishes to avoid the conflict, but secretly, their inner negativity bias is keeping score.

Their body remembers and resentment builds just like a volcano ready to burst. If you fly away from conflict, your animal body doesn’t feel safe as a result. In fact, your body is harboring the volcanic message: you’re not safe here. You’re not safe here. Your partner’s animal body picks up on those signals too.

Time for a reality check.

Your negativity bias is reacting as if the dish on the counter is a Saber-Toothed tiger. Don’t believe that negativity bias.

 

You can’t turn your negativity bias off

The problem is, you can’t turn your negativity bias off.

Your reptilian brain—where your negativity bias lives—is ancient and it trumps your thinking brain. This is GOOD when it comes to Saber-Toothed tigers, and bad when it comes to neglected dishes.

You want that warning system sometimes. You want to leap out of the way when a car threatens to run you over. You don’t have time to think. Your body needs the power of reaction.

But that same powerful reaction is stealing the love from my client’s marriage, making him feel like he and his wife are no longer in love.

Can you see how those negative messages your bias is constantly sending you kills any momentum you might have for connection?

Something’s wrong! Fight! Something’s wrong! Freeze! Something’s wrong! Fly away!

Your best hope is to neutralize the messages your negativity bias sends you. If you constantly have an alarm going off saying, “Danger! Danger!” it’s hard to get momentum to find and nurture new areas of connection.

The inevitable consequence is that you and your partner fall out of love because you sense danger. This is what happened to my client.

So, if we can’t get rid of our negativity bias, what do we do about it?

 

The “Hello” experiment

With my client who feels blah about his wife and is sure his wife no longer loves him, I recommend instituting a tender hello.

I ask him, “What would it be like if, when you get home at the end of the day you let your wife know you are glad to see her?”

“What’dya mean?” he says. This is how I know we’ve struck gold and we’re finding a hopeful solution to his lackluster marriage situation.

“What if,” I propose, “When you walk in the door at the end of the day, you set your stuff down and go to find you wife and you give her a hug and say, ‘How was your day?’”

My client is frozen. He says nothing. He doesn’t move.

“Does that feel scary to you?” I ask.

“Scary? No! Why would it be scary to ask my own wife if she had a good day?” he says to me. He laughs. But it’s not the kind of free laugh that bubbles up from his belly. This laugh is nervous. I feel shoved away by it.

“Can you feel your body right now?” I ask. “It looks like your jaw is a little tight.” Then I offer him some words that I hope are comforting. “It’s really normal to be scared to offer your wife a hug when you come home especially if this isn’t your typical practice.”

We are all creatures of habit. Our animal bodies love habits. Our negativity bias hates change.

While he probably started his marriage giving that hello hug, then there was a day that he came home and was distracted by something at work. He missed the hello hug. No biggie. It’s just a single day of distraction.

But then work got harder. Kids came along and they provided another layer of chaos that got in the way of that hello hug, and, before you know it, it’s been 3 years since there was a genuine moment of “Hello. I’m glad to see you. I’d love to hear about the day you had.”

 

The terror of a hug

Here’s the problem for my client: it’s actually really, really scary to think about hugging his wife at the end of the day now.

He’s tried, actually.

He approached her once, reached out to rub her back, and she pulled away. She was busy chopping onions for dinner. She had a knife in her hand. She was tearing up from all those onions. The onions were the excuse she gave for not hugging him back.

But she never reached out for that hug after the onions were safely sauteing. And my client’s negativity bias focused on that lack and told him it’s dangerous to reach for hugs in the future. A reach for a hug is a guarantee to get rejected. That was the message he received.

Here’s the secret, however: His wife doesn’t remember how to give this hello-hug either. She is listening to her negativity bias that tells her this guy is a slacker. He comes home late…which of course means he’s not reliable. He says he’s gonna pick up the lettuce at the store, but he forgets…which of course means he’ll never keep promises. He doesn’t distract the kids while she’s making dinner…which of course means he doesn’t love them, and doesn’t love her.

Name your negativity bias over and over

Are you hearing me NAME all the warnings her negativity bias is trying to offer her?

Meanwhile, my client saw his wife’s tiny onion-chopping withdrawal as a threat. “I tried to hug her, Rebecca, and she left me hanging there, cold.”

Can you see how that negativity bias gets into both of their heads and starts making up stories. The onion saga plays out night after night and, a year later, this couple doesn’t even know how to be tender with each other.

They don’t feel in love.

That’s what my client complained of, right?

It’s so insidious. Almost invisible, this shift from in love to entrenched. Entrenched in the daily details that make each of them feel alienated from the other.

 

How your negativity bias alienates you from your partner

Your negativity bias is tied to your animal body. Did you know that you’re an animal? Just like a deer that gets frozen in the headlights of your car and can’t run away? Or like a porcupine who, when they sense danger, all their pokey quills go up?

Remember that your negativity bias is there to protect you. To keep you safe. But when that negativity bias senses that you are NOT safe, it takes measures to protect you: causing you to freeze when your wife says, “You forgot the lettuce?”

Or causing you to raise your quills when she tends to the onion instead of your bid for a hello hug.

Your frozen stare—in your body—when she asks about the lettuce is because you’re afraid of being rejected. This is your natural fight/flight/freeze reaction when you’re afraid. You got distracted. Yes. You forgot the lettuce, but it was because you were focused on remembering that hello hug.

You wanted to show your love. That’s where your focus was. But then you forgot the lettuce. You felt your partner blame you and withdraw, and viola! Your negativity bias is going into hyperdrive: Whoa! It’s not safe here no matter what I do. I better armor up for this relationship.

 

Animal bodies communicate louder than words. Lots louder.

My client heard the message his wife sent when she turned to the onions in favor of hugging him: You stink. I don’t love you.

He freezes. Because he’s scared.

Then his wife senses his freeze and do you know what her negativity bias makes of that? Here’s the message she takes away, I told you so. You’re in this alone. He’s never gonna help with the kids. You have to do everything yourself. You can’t rely on him because he’s unreliable.

Now this couple is really digging in deep. Alienation fosters alienation and that’s why they aren’t hugging. That’s why my client is convinced they aren’t in love.

Tiny. Tiny. Moments.

Tiny moments can destroy your relationship if you are listening exclusively to your negativity bias.

Thankfully, the three steps I named are simple to enact.

Simple but not even close to easy.

It takes a lot of practice because your negativity bias is tenacious and will keeping dodging your attempts to connect with your partner, warning you over and over that it’s not safe.

My promise to you is that, if you will practice these three simple steps, your relationship will improve even if you are the only one practicing them.

Name it.
Tame it.
Muscle up.

Name the warning—the specific warning your negativity bias is trying to offer.

Then tame it with laughter at the ridiculousness of the warning or with the question, what else might be true?

Finally, muscle up. Take the 4-second risk that neutralizes the warning. That might be loading the dishes into the dishwasher or it might be asking for the hug the second time when the onions are safely sautéing.

 

When you feel yourself going negative, NAME IT.

What are you warning me about negativity bias? What are you afraid will happen? My negativity bias answered: These dishes are evidence David will leave the marriage soon.

Then TAME IT. You might tame it immediately with the ridiculousness of the answer you receive when you name it. But, if not, tame your negativity bias with this question: What ELSE might be just as true?

When you can offer your negativity bias another alternative to the fear it’s warning you about, it lets go. Stops the alarm bells.

Finally, MUSCLE UP. Be brave in the face of your negativity bias’s fear. Do the tiny thing that will bridge the gap that could grow between you and your partner. Load the dishes. Offer the second chance for a hug.

My client and his wife fell out of love because moment after moment they gave in to the fears and warnings of their negativity biases. Don’t be like them.

Instead muscle up and overcome the fears your negativity bias warns you about.

 

The promise of a tender hello

The great thing is that you don’t even have to face every alarm your negativity bias tries to warn you about.

Instead, I invited my client to focus on offering his wife a tender hello.

We came up with lots of muscle building exercises. I pretended to be his wife and turned away from his hug to focus on the onions.

He MUSCLED UP. He questioned her intentions, why else might she be tending the onions? He came up with three reasons:

1. She’s eager to feed us dinner.
2. She is oblivious to the fact that she turned away.
3. She is also scared of hugging me.

After he found those questions, we found 3 ways he could try to offer the second (or third, or even fourth) hug.

1. I could simply wait until she feels like she has dinner under control, then I could mindfully and kindly say, “Thanks for caring about our dinner so much. Can I hug you hello now?”
2. I could grab her dramatically and take the spatula from her hand saying, “Kiss me my Darling!” making it a joke.
3. I could actually mention that, although I don’t think she means to, it hurts my feelings when she turns away from my hello.

 

Then we lowered his expectations.

I told him that he was the one coming to my office, not his wife. I promised him that I could help him change the way he approached his negativity bias, but I was powerless to help her.

I watched his face soften with this. He realized how much we’d done in today’s session to help him understand all the ways his negativity bias was harming his relationship, but he saw that his wife wasn’t able to benefit from any of our discussion.

He felt bad for her. He could see how captive she was.

That compassion emboldened him to MUSCLE UP even more. He wanted to push past her alarm bells to assure her that he was still the right man to share her life.

“I’m actually ready to hug her over and over,” he said to me. He could see her resistance completely differently. It was her fear inspiring her to turn away, not her lack of love.

Here’s an example:

Find a moment in your life where you regularly see the negative. If you struggle to see your negativity bias, just list three things that bug you about your partner. These are clues.

Once you’re able to see WHERE your negativity bias is likely to be giving you unnecessary warnings, consciously ask your negativity bias to NAME the warning it’s trying to give you.

Name it

What do you want me to know? You can ask your negativity bias. When you externalize it in this way it neutralizes the warning. It’s not so dire. The alarm becomes a suggestion.

Next TAME IT.

Maybe you’ll be able to laugh at the ridiculous nature of the warning. Laughter is great for neutralizing alarm bells. You can’t be afraid and laugh at the same time.

If laughter doesn’t come naturally, however, use the taming question of what else might be true? When you can investigate things from your partner’s point of view, you can almost always neutralize those alarming signals from your negativity bias.

Another question could be, what’s good about the way my partner does this? This hidden gem of a question allowed me to discover I’m thrilled that my husband feels so comfortable living with me that he leaves his dishes around. I’m a natural nurturer, and when I discovered this possibility, it was like a magic trick for my fear of being taken for granted. I WANT my husband to take my nurturance for granted.

Finally, MUSCLE UP.

Your negativity bias is really just your imagination. Your negativity bias is just imagining everything that could go wrong.

What if you MUSCLE UP by training your imagination to answer a different question: What is good about this situation? Isn’t that just as worthwhile as letting your imagination-rich negativity bias answer the question what is wrong with this situation?

How would my client’s marriage be different today if, instead of listening to those tiny cues his negativity bias was feeding him for the last 3 years, he asked what is good about my marriage instead?

What if he’d been asking the question what makes me feel in love with my wife today? He’d been listening to the voice of his negativity bias that said, what is the evidence your wife is falling out of love with you today?

If you’d like to hear my struggle with offering a tender hello, listen to episode 8 of this podcast—A Secret About the Power of Hello in Your Relationship.

Here’s an example:

I have two reminders of my negativity bias. You’ve heard me talk about this before as my Lizard Brain.

I have a tiny plastic dinosaur and a big, fluffy, cuddly looking dinosaur. They are both named Lance. The two tchotchke remind me that sometimes Lance—my negativity bias—is hard-edged and fierce. But sometimes my Lance looks soft and cuddly, like when he’s trying to keep the people I love safe, “Oh! I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go rock climbing. You might fall.”

Lance is well-intentioned. But also a kill-joy.

When I showed my husband my cuddly Lance, he got insight into the way my brain works. Now, when I’m trying to stop him from adventuring, he’s able to say, “I know Lance is scared. But you’d get bored of me if I was just sitting home every day and staying super safe.” Which is actually true, by the way.

Talk to your partner about your negativity bias. Tell your partner all the various disguises it might wear. Ask about your partner’s negativity bias.

Then refer back to last week’s episode of the podcast. Remember Jim Rohn’s quote, “Direction determines destination?”

If your negativity bias is anything like mine, it will focus on the destination rather than the direction.

If your partner regularly puts their dishes in the dishwasher, but today they were running late and left the dishes out on the counter, your negativity bias might seize on this: You left your dishes out again!

Negativity biases are nitpicky and they over-generalize.

Your dream destination is a clean kitchen. Six out of seven days that’s what you got. The direction of your lifestyle is headed where you want. But your negativity bias goes searching for “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

Your negativity bias points out the singular time this week the dishes were left untended even though 6 days went according to your plan of a clean kitchen. That’s a yucky way to live, isn’t it?

Just getting to talk with your partner a bit about your negativity bias helps to clear the air. This conversation opens the possibility for you or your partner to name those negative biases when they pop up, and they don’t feel so all-powerful.

Instead, you’re able to see them for what they are: protectors. And you can politely ask them to get into the backseat rather than driving the bus.