Have you ever noticed the peculiar tendency you have to let praise pass through you, but to feel
crushed by criticism? A thousand positive remarks can slip by unnoticed, but one “you suck” can
linger in your head for days. One hypothesis as to why this and the backfire effect happen is that you
spend much more time considering information you disagree with than you do information you accept.
Information that lines up with what you already believe passes through the mind like a vapor, but
when you come across something that threatens your beliefs, something that conflicts with your
preconceived notions of how the world works, you seize up and take notice. Some psychologists
speculate there is an evolutionary explanation. Your ancestors paid more attention and spent more
time thinking about negative stimuli than positive because bad things required a response. Those who
failed to address negative stimuli failed to keep breathing.
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