Psychologist Janusz Czapinski coded more than 17,000 research articles in psychology journals and found that the coverage of negative issues and phenomena exceeded positive, good ones 69% to 31%, a bias that was fairly strong across all areas of psychology!
Bad is stronger than good
"The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interper- sonal interactions, and learning processes. Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and sa- lience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found. Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena."
Psychologist Janusz Czapinski coded more than 17,000 research articles in psychology journals and found that the coverage of negative issues and phenomena exceeded positive, good ones 69% to 31%, a bias that was fairly strong across all areas of psychology
This piece of knowledge it could, like most things, be applied to weightlifting. Specifically in regards to making and missing lifts. For a beginner it's massively important to get into the grove of making lifts. This is important because, when we're just starting off with something new we make neurological alterations in our brains easier and quicker than when we've done something for a while or for a lot of repetition. If we keep missing lifts due to suboptimal technique early on it will be harder to change that neurological pathways later, due to it being coded deeper within our neurological pathways. Starting off in the right track is far better than starting on the wrong side of the tracks. Think of it asbuilding a snowman. The concept of rolling a small snowball over and over sounds easy, well it is. However, whether you choose to roll that snowball up a hill versus down a hill has major implications on whether you'll successfully complete the snowman or not. The bigger the snowball becomes the harder it becomes to push it up the hill. So early on there will always be improvements whether your technique is average or good. However, at a certain point there will be a plateau when the current technique or mindset of "pushing though" will work. Yes it's a difficult sport and you'll get a couple of missed lifts every now and again. But if you put yourself in the mindset of making lifts early on, although they might not be performed with the best technique, you're setting yourself up for greater success than if missed lifts are a regular occasion. Because weightlifting is just as mentally challenging as it is physically, it's incredibly important to be in the habit of making lifts. This is where we can tie in the positive-negative asymmetry concept by Czapinski. Because we know the ratio negativity has over positivity, 69% to 31%, we can use this to our advantage. In essence, whenever a lift is missed three lifts must be made to make up for the asymmetry. If you are a beginner this is really easy to apply. If you make a lift happy days, add some weight. if you miss a lift, shame on you, decrease the weight and make three good lifts before attempting the weight you missed prior. This way you'll be in the mindset of making lifts and you'll strengthen the neurological pathways of the technique necessary to make lifts. All of that being said. It might not be enough of only looking at it from a view point of making and missing lifts, but looking at why lifts are being missed should also be a big factor for future improvement
Thanks for reading, FAE Barbell