Asymmetrical Effects of Positive & Negative Events
Psych 🧠- 316/500
Reader,
This research paper explores the differences in how people respond to positive & negative events.
What is it?
It introduces the "mobilization-minimization hypothesis," which suggests that negative events trigger stronger and more immediate reactions across various domains (physiological, emotional, cognitive, and social) compared to positive or neutral events.
However, these heightened responses are followed by a minimization phase, where people actively work to dampen, mute, or even erase the impact of the negative event.
Negative events mobilize resources: Across diverse research areas, evidence shows that negative events elicit more intense physiological arousal, stronger emotional reactions, greater attention, and more elaborate cognitive processing than positive events.
Negative events lead to social mobilization: People are more likely to seek social support, affiliation, and comparison in response to threats or negative experiences.
Minimization follows mobilization: After the initial surge of activity, people engage in a variety of processes to minimize the impact of the negative event. These include:
Physiological: The parasympathetic nervous system kicks in to calm down the body.
Emotional: Negative feelings are offset by positive emotions like relief or exhilaration.
Cognitive: Negative memories become less accessible, and causal reasoning is used to explain away or distance oneself from the event.
Social: People engage in impression management, attempt to restore equity in relationships, and may even deny the negative event occurred.
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What do I need to know:
This mobilization-minimization pattern is stronger for negative events than for positive ones.
Positive events may trigger some arousal and cognitive processing, but the minimization phase is less pronounced.
Negative events have a powerful impact: They demand more attention, resources, and processing than positive events.
Minimization is adaptive: While the initial mobilization helps us deal with the immediate threat, minimizing the long-term impact protects our well-being and allows us to function effectively.
Positive and negative affect are distinct: This pattern highlights the unique nature of positive and negative affect, suggesting they cannot be simply viewed as opposite ends of a spectrum.
Understanding the pattern has implications: Recognizing this pattern can help us understand various phenomena like negativity bias in judgments, the power of social support, and strategies for coping with stress and negative experiences.
While no single theory explains the entire pattern, the paper suggests that a combination of these and other process models, linked together by their respective outputs, can offer a more comprehensive understanding.