Keynote: Getting Stuck in the Negative

Why do negative events seem to stick in our heads so much longer than positive ones? And is there anything we can do about it? Behavioral science research suggests that the human mind may be wired to look for negative information and to hold onto it. This tendency for our minds to tilt toward the negative has important consequences for understanding how people react in the face of stress and negative events, and it can help explain why individuals often make irrational financial decisions in the face of bad news. The good news is that we can also retrain our brains—if we put some effort into it—so that we start to weigh the good and the bad a little more evenhandedly.