Positive and Negative Feedback

Have you ever noticed that when someone says something negative about you it carries much more weight than when someone says something positive about you?

One psychological theory for why this happens is that, from an evolutionary perspective, when something negative happens this is a signal that something has changed in our environment and we may have to do something about it.

Like, all of a sudden, all the gazelles are in a pack and running. Fast. And they seem anxious. That can’t be good. Maybe we better start running, too.

These days, what activates our threat response system, or fight or flight, is more likely something that leads to social rejection. Because from an evolutionary perspective, if people don’t like you, they might not be as inclined to tell you that they just saw a bunch of gazelle run by and it might be a good idea to run for your life.

So now the change we need to make might be something more like, be more attentive to our partner, stay longer at work, or pick the spinach out of our teeth. Otherwise, we might lose someone or something.

In contrast, when someone says something positive about us, everything is status quo and we just go about our business. Not getting fired today, thank goodness!

In fact, because negativity weighs more than positivity, the magic ratio for happiness, according to research, is 3 to 1: three positive occurrences for every negative occurrence. So whenever someone says something mean to you, find 3 people who like you and ask them to say something nice about you. Or if you’re going to give constructive feedback, mix in 3 positive things to say about them.

For me personally, three positive comments are not sufficient to undo the self-criticism that occurs after one negative comment. I need a ratio of something like 50:1, so brutal is that voice in my head that tells me that I suck.

When I was teaching online, I taught multiple classes and would have 50 students in individual tutorials in each class. Which is a lot of work, especially on top of my full-time job, which is being a therapist. Still, most of the time I managed to juggle everything, and in general, students gave me positive feedback.

When I received their course evaluations, here’s how I would treat their feedback as I went through the comments on email: I really enjoyed your class! I signed up for another one next term. (Delete) I loved the  paper assignments. I felt like I learned a lot about myself. (Delete) I really loved the textbook. I’m going to keep it rather than sell it back.(Delete)

Here’s what would happen when I got negative feedback: I thought the exams were hard and that you did not give me enough feedback on how to improve my grade. I’m going to complain about you to my advisor right now. (Reread 10 times. Did I do something wrong? I told her the same thing I tell every student after an exam. Maybe I just suck as a teacher. Maybe they’re going to get mad at me and fire me. Maybe this student is just upset by her grade. No, it must be my fault.)

This is a 3:1 ratio, by the way.

And I would obsess about this for, well the rest of my life, really. I remember every mistake I’ve ever made, even the ones that happened when I was 5 (like stealing that pack of gum from K-Mart). For obsessive people, there is no statute of limitations. You can be charged at any time for real or imagined crimes.

But I have learned some strategies that help me balance the scale between positivity and negativity.

• Whenever I remember a negative comment from a student years ago and start thinking about what a terrible teacher I was, I remind myself that the other 49 students said that they enjoyed the class.
• When I start beating myself up because I’m obsessing over a negative comment that a student made years ago, I tell myself that I’m not crazy; I just have a really good memory, and this is one of the downsides of remembering everything.
• When I get positive feedback I read it over and over again, tell myself to take it in and give myself permission to believe it’s true. I tell someone about it to make the feeling last.
• When all else fails, I take an Ativan because my psychiatrist said that’s what I should do when I’m spiraling.

Today I was looking through the registration form for what I thought was a new client. There is a section where we ask if they’ve been in therapy before and if they found it helpful. She wrote that she had seen me in therapy previously for several months and found it extremely helpful and that she hasn’t been able to find a therapist who she trusts since then.

This is when I thought I sucked as a therapist, too.

I have read the comment several times so far and am trying to allow myself to believe that I am, in fact, a good therapist. In this moment, it’s working.

P.S. More recent research found that the 3:1 ratio of positive to negative feedback doesn’t help. They changed it to 5:1. So it’s not just me.