THE POWER OF BAD

A surprising look at the power of negative thinking: how we can train ourselves to use its impact to improve literally all aspects of our lives.

Experiments had shown that bad impressions lasted longer than good impressions. To find out why, Baumeister started by looking for situations in which good events had a stronger impact than bad ones. But he and his team couldn't find any. Evolutionarily, this makes perfect sense, which is why the bias is as innate as our flight reflex. However, in the modern era, the power of bad is a handicap. But we can all train our brains to recognize our phobia of bad and fight back with our rational mind.

Roy F. Baumeister, the coauthor of Willpower, is a research psychologist at the University of Queensland who studies why normal adults think, feel, and act as they do. He is especially known for his work on self and identity; the negativity effect; social rejection and the need to belong; self-control; self-esteem; and how people find meaning in life.

John Tierney, the coauthor of Willpower, is a contributing editor to City Journal and writes the "Findings" science column for the New York Times. His writing has won awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Physics.