Did you get the (subliminal) message?
Anyone that’s not living under a rock these days understands how bad the economic recession impacted the Michiana area over the last two years. It seems like every day, we are hearing and reading the same news every day: more layoffs, business closings and dropping consumer confidence. While it appears that we might be through the worst of it, and it’s not as if we haven’t been without some good stories throughout it all. In fact, PentaVision is sponsoring a contest to find and celebrate positive stories from Michiana businesses and organizations. Despite the fact that we know there are good things happening, how is it that the worst of it seems to make the biggest impression, while the good news is easily forgotten?
Last week, a colleague shared an article that helped shed some light on this very topic. Researchers from UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience have finally given validity to what we know is true: we seem to responde more to the bad stuff. The study shows subliminal messages can provoke an emotional response in the brain – and apparently, it’s the bad stuff that sticks with us. The research “…provides evidence that people are able to process emotional information from subliminal images and demonstrates conclusively that even under such conditions, information of negative value is better detected than information of positive value” (UCL, 2009).
So what can we glean from this cheery bit of news? It’s not that we want to focus on all of the bad around us – we just seem to remember it more. Well, I say blame the brain! Maybe it’s some ingrained survival mechanism, but whatever it is, it’s going to take a little more effort to find the good. So maybe it’s time for us to try a little harder. If you want to check out the research findings, click here.
