“You look great. It’s great that you’re not worried about your weight.” When you hear this, it can be interpreted as a double compliment. This is because both your appearance and your attitude are being complimented. However, it’s unlikely that you’ll take it that way. The criticism is subtle and has to be worked out first (it takes a lot of cognitive effort), because it is only implicit. Nevertheless, the critical element gains the upper hand. This is just one small example among many of a phenomenon that results from what goes on in our brains:
Criticism usually carries more weight than praise, it has a stronger effect.
When you get a new haircut or wardrobe, or tell a funny story to a group of people, it doesn’t matter how many praise your new look or laugh at your jokes. If just one person hesitates before speaking or rolls their eyes in boredom, that’s the reaction that will stick in your mind and make you feel bad.
What is going on here? If criticism is so unpleasant, why do brains take it so seriously? Is there a neurological process at work? Or is it a morbid psychological attraction to unpleasantness – something that also manifests itself, for example, in the bizarre urge to pick at a scab or jerk at a loose tooth? Of course, how could it be otherwise, there is more than one possible answer.
Bad, bad things usually have a greater effect on the brain than good things. At a basic neurological level, the effect of criticism may be due to the hormone cortisol. This hormone is released by the brain in response to stressful events. It is one of the chemical triggers of the fight-or-flight response and is generally believed to be the cause of the many different problems caused by stress. The release of cortisol is primarily controlled by the HPA axis. This is a complex connection of neurological and endocrine (i.e., hormone-regulating) regions of the brain and body. The HPA axis coordinates the overall response to stress.
It was once thought to be activated in response to a stressful event, such as a sudden loud noise. However, subsequent research has shown that the axis is a bit more selective and only activates under certain conditions. According to a current theory, it only occurs when the achievement of a particular goal is threatened. For example, if you’re walking outside and some bird poop lands on you, that’s annoying and possibly dangerous, since the poop may contain pathogens. However, it is unlikely to trigger the HPA axis response because “not from a bird flying around If you are walking outside and some bird droppings land on you, that is annoying and possibly dangerous because the droppings may contain pathogens. However, it is unlikely to trigger the HPA response because it is not from a bird flying around.
The obvious goal of a human being is self-preservation. However, when your goal is to stay alive and something happens that might prevent you from doing so, the HPA axis activates the stress response. This was one of the reasons for the assumption that the HPA responds to everything: humans are capable of recognizing a threat to their existence anywhere and in anything, and they do so.
However, humans are complex creatures, and it follows, among other things, that we are highly dependent on the opinions and feedback of others. The theory of social self-preservation suggests that people have a deep-seated motivation to maintain their social position (i.e., to continue to be liked by those whose esteem they value). This leads to threat. In particular, anything that threatens the social status a person believes he or she has, or the image he or she has of himself or herself, disrupts the drive to be liked. It activates the HPA axis and triggers the release of cortisol.
Criticism, insults, rejection, ridicule – all of these attack and potentially damage our self-esteem, especially when we are exposed to this criticism in public. The achievement of our goal of being liked and accepted is thus called into question. The stress this causes leads to the release of cortisol, which has numerous physiological effects (such as increased release of glucose), but also directly affects our brain. We know that our fight-or-flight response increases our concentration and makes our memories more vivid and salient.
Cortisol, along with other hormones, may also cause this to happen (to varying degrees) when we are criticized. We then experience a concrete physical response that sensitizes us and gives more weight to the memory of the event. When something negative happens, and we experience it firsthand so that it evokes all the relevant feelings and sensations, the processes in the hippocampus and amygdala kick in again, emotionally enriching the memory and giving it a more prominent place.
Pleasant experiences, such as receiving praise, also trigger a neurological response: the brain releases oxytocin. This substance makes us feel pleasure, but less strongly and more fleetingly. The chemical composition of oxytocin causes it to disappear from the bloodstream in about five minutes, whereas cortisol can stay in the blood for more than an hour, perhaps as long as two hours. Thus, the effects of cortisol last much longer than those of oxytocin. That nature limits the duration of pleasure signals so severely may seem like a somewhat mean-spirited move on her part, but if things give us pleasure for a long time, they tend to put us out of commission. However, it is as easy as it is misleading to attribute everything that happens in the brain to the action of certain chemical substances. So here are some other (additional) explanations for the great weight we give to criticism.
Despite what online comment boards suggest, most people (although there are some differences from culture to culture) interact with others in a respectful manner because they follow social norms and rules of behavior. Calling someone names on the street is something decent people don’t do. Consideration and modest praise are the norm. You thank the cashier when she gives you your change back, even though it is yours and she has no right to keep it. When something becomes the norm, our novelty-loving brain filters it out, mostly through the process of habituation. After all, if something happens all the time, why should the brain waste precious energy focusing on it? After all, ignoring it is harmless.
Mild praise is the norm, so criticism may have a greater impact simply because it is atypical to express. A grumpy face stands out in a crowd of laughing people simply because it is different. Our visual systems and those responsible for attention have evolved to prioritize novelty, otherness, and threat-all of which are embodied by the grouchy face. But when we are used to being praised with empty phrases like “Well done,” it is all the more shocking when someone throws in a “You really screwed up. Fortunately, you don’t hear that very often, so it sounds particularly discordant to your own ears. You also study something unpleasant longer and more intensively because you want to find out why it happened to you. Then you might be able to prevent it from happening again.
The way our brains work tends to make us all a little selfish, interpreting and remembering events in a way that makes us look better in our own eyes. If this is our default state, then someone who praises us is just telling us something we already know. Direct criticism, on the other hand, is hard to misinterpret and gives the system a shock.
When you present yourself to the public through a performance, something you’ve created, or even just an opinion you’re expressing, you’re basically saying, “I’m sure you’ll like this.” You are clearly trying to gain the approval of others. But unless you are pathologically overconfident, there will always be a little doubt: You might be wrong. In this case, one is sensitive to the danger of rejection, and one is alert to signs of disapproval or criticism, especially if one or the other is related to something of which one is very proud, or which has cost one a great deal of time and effort. However, if one is virtually calibrated to find something that is “against” one, then one is much more likely to actually discover it. After all, a hypochondriac is always discovering symptoms of rare diseases in himself. This distorted view is called confirmation bias: we see what we are looking for and ignore anything that does not fit the picture.
Our brains can only judge based on what we know, and that is based on our own conclusions and experiences: Accordingly, we tend to judge the actions of those around us based on what we do ourselves. So if we are polite and courteous because social norms dictate that we should be, we assume that everyone else behaves in the same way. As a result, there is something dubious about any praise you receive: Is it sincere or not? But if you are criticized by someone else, then not only have you done something bad, but you have been so bad that someone was willing to go against social norms and call you out on it. And again, criticism carries more weight than praise.
The brain’s sophisticated system for detecting and responding to potential threats is arguably what enabled humans to survive in the wild and become the civilized, sophisticated species we are today. But this system also has its drawbacks: Our complex intellects allow us not only to recognize threats, but also to anticipate or even imagine them. You can threaten or frighten a person in many ways, triggering a neurological, psychological, or sociological response in the brain.
Unfortunately, that can create a vulnerability that other people can exploit. In a way, that can create a real threat, a real danger. You may be familiar with the word negging. It refers to a tactic used by men to pick up women, which consists of saying something to a woman that sounds like a compliment. In reality, however, it is a criticism or insult that undermines the confidence of the person being approached. If a man were to approach a woman and say what serves as the heading for this section, it would be “negging. He might also say something like, “I like your hairstyle, most women with a face like yours wouldn’t dare wear their hair like that. Or, “I don’t usually like girls that short, but you look cool. Or, “That dress will look great on you once you lose some weight. Or, “I have no idea how to approach women because I’ve only ever seen them through a telescope, so I’m going to resort to cheap psychological tricks in the hopes of damaging your confidence enough that you’ll be willing to sleep with me. The last example is not typical negging, but it comes down to the same thing. It’s also a form of pickup line.
However, there is not always a sinister intent behind such criticism. We all know the type of person who, when someone has done something they can be proud of, goes off and points out all the things they did wrong. After all, why make the effort to accomplish something yourself when it’s enough to drag others through the mud to make yourself feel better? There is a cruel irony in the fact that the brain, by so eagerly looking for danger, creates it.