Why does failure seem to stick in my mind so much longer than success?

Written By anouk dreier

images: istock

the reason why I wrote this post

Here is a little insight into my story to make more sense of why I wrote this post. 


In the summer of 2022, I had my first exam period at law school. So successfully writing them meant completing my first year of law school. 


The 1.5 months leading up to this time were honestly one of the most horrible times of my life. I neglected everything regarding sleep, wholesome food, quality time for myself, etc. In other words, it was just me and the books. But when I was supposed to have a study strategy, I just tried to learn everything in the books. Deep down, however,I knew that this wasn't working, but with the time running, I felt like I didn't have enough time to determine how to study smarter. Instead, I just tried to study harder. But the harder I tried and the less all this information seemed to stick, the more anxious and panicked I became. 
At this time, I just ignored all these feelings until I couldn't anymore…


One morning, before leaving for one of the exams, I had a panic attack, even though I surprisingly felt pretty good on this day. On another morning, while already sitting in an exam, panic overcame me again. I remember sitting there and not seeing the letters on the exam paper; everything seemed blurry, and I couldn't absorb or comprehend the information I was supposed to. Even thinking back on this experience gives me goosebumps. After waiting a few months, I got the test results back, which were (obviously) bad; I didn't make it, I failed. 


It was hard to accept that I failed at it because I always thought I had potential in that field, but getting those test results back seemed to prove me otherwise. I was scared of what other people would think of me, knowing that I failed these exams and instead of showing up with kindness towards myself, I was so incredibly mean to myself; failing these exams seemed to me like I was a complete failure. On top of that, almost all my friends I made during this year passed the exams, which meant they knew what came after their first year. I didn't know what to do or what came next… In other words, I was utterly overwhelmed by the situation but did not have the energy to focus my mind on solutions. 


But after a summer of travelling and having some distance to that time, I decided to try again. It was a scary image of me sitting in these exam halls again and writing these exams, but somehow I knew I had to face my fears and try again. 


Fast forward, I had them at the beginning of January of 2023 and last week I got the results back. And let me tell you, I passed! Yes, omg, I passed! Reading the results, which were so much better than in the summer, I felt this rush of excitement and joy overcome me. I could feel how the pressure and the fear fell off my shoulders. It was a great moment. But as quickly as these feelings of joy and excitement rolled over me the faster they vanished in the background, and I started to think predominantly again about the summer of 2022 and what I have to keep improving on to make this never happen again. 

Looking into the science

So, what's going on here with me? Why does this time of failure stick harder in my mind than this big success?


To answer this question, we have to go way back in time; in fact, to the time when our ancestors, the cavemen, travelled around the earth. They had to be cautious of any potential threat or danger to survive. The ones who were more attuned to danger and paid more attention to the bad things in their environment were more likely to survive, which meant they had a bigger chance to hand down their genetics, which made them more attentive to danger (What is the negativity bias?).


Even though our lifestyles are vastly different today from how our ancestors lived, we still have this type of wiring in our brains, where focusing more on the negative than the positive is a way to keep us safe. This adaptive evolutionary function is also known as the negativity bias. It's our tendency to remember, learn from and attend to negative events unproportionally more than positive ones. This asymmetry of how our brain thinks was proven in various experiments (3-steps-negativity-bias). 

I.exp. in one of the many conducted experiments, psychologist Alison Ledgerwood and her colleagues asked the participants of two groups if they liked the current governor. They said to both groups that statewide budget cuts were expected to affect about 10'000 jobs when the governor took office. To One of the groups, though, they said that under the current governor's leadership, 40% of these jobs had been saved. As a result this group liked the current governor and thought he was doing a great job. The rest of the participants read that under the current governor's leadership, 60% of these jobs had been lost, and as a result, they didn't like the current governor; they thought he was doing a terrible job. It’s very interesting to see that even though both statements to both groups had the same meaning, just with different wording, the groups judged the governor differently. To one of the groups the psychologist emphasized the negative side and to the other group the positive side was pointed out. 

In the second round of the experiment, they reframed the information for the first and second group. For the first group, they reframed the information in terms of losses, and now they didn't like the current governor anymore. For participants in the second group, they reframed the information in terms of gains, but surprisingly that change didn't matter to them. The participants still didn't like the governor. In other words, the negativity bias hit (a simple trick to improve positive thinking). 

The big gorilla unseen

But why did these people from group 2 focus on the negativity even after reframing their picture of the situation to the positive? Why did they get stuck in one way of thinking about it? 


A way to answer this question is by bringing the lens on how our attention works. Two psychologists, Arien Mack and Irvin Rock, showed in their research that even though our brain consumes all the impulses through our sensory organs, our mind might never become aware of all that information. In other words, what we perceive might be something we are not aware of. Crucial to what we become aware of in our conscious mind is where we bring our attention and focus to.  


In an experiment that went viral on Youtube in 2010 (check it out below), the viewers were asked how often people with a white shirt pass a ball. When asked what they saw, most viewers proudly announced the number they had counted the ball pass, not realizing they had missed a gorilla walking through the group of people. Connecting this experiment to the concept of the negativity bias, the experiment shows that a negativity bias is a negativity attention bias. Once we focus on the negative side of things, we reshape our perception into seeing negative things. We might be so focused on counting all the adverse events in our life that we entirely miss the positive gorilla in the frame (Why your brain has a negativity bias).



Tips and Tricks to overcome the negativity bias

We know now that negative information sticks more to our brains. Because of evolutionary reasons, we tend to bring more attention to the loss frame. We can, however, learn to redirect our attention to a brighter side. Here are a few tips to unlearn the negative thinking pattern: 


  • Start doing breathing meditation. A study conducted in 2011 by Kiken and Shook found that practicing mindful breathing, a form of meditation, increased positive judgments and engaged higher levels of optimism in participants (Why is the news always so depressing).

  • Break the cycle of ruminating on things and spiral down a negative mindset with an uplifting activity such as (What is the negativity bias?):
    - going for a walk
    - listening to upbeat music 
    - Cook your favorite meal 
    - Read a good book

  • At the end of the day, talk not only about what went wrong but also about the stuff that was good. Because in this way, it also helps you to see things more balanced and most of the time, you will realize your day was pretty decent after all (a simple trick to improve positive thinking).

  • Learn to appreciate micro-positive moments in your life. For example, you are waiting for the bus and the red sky in the morning is glowing over you, or you are eating a delicious meal, or you are having a laugh with one of your friends and so on. There are so many moments that feel so insignificant at first but actually help you see life's hidden treasures. If you don't know where to start, an exercise called "Mindful eating" from psychology today can help you with that (What is negativity bias and how can it be overcome?).


anouk dreier
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