Why are some people just inclined to hate on things? To pick the
dumbest, most negative facets of a situation and focus on them
exclusively, ignoring anything good that might be there in favor of just
ragging on things? According to a new study published this week, we may
just be born that way, having a “negative dispositional attitude” from
birth.
The study by researchers at the University of Illinois and University
of Pennsylvania sought to explain why some people are just so
relentlessly negative about the world around them, though they
presumably did not take ask the simplest question involved there:
whether the world objectively sucks. Instead, publishing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers suggest a new aspect of
personality — the “dispositional attitude.”
Dispositional attitude is a fancy way of saying that some people are
inclined to look on the bright side of things, while others are more
likely to view the glass as half empty. Others of us, meanwhile, are
more apt to simply mix metaphors. People with a positive dispositional
attitude see the world through rose-colored glasses, while others are
constantly waking up on the wrong side of the bed.
In the course of the study, researchers interviewed many subjects
about a wide variety of unrelated things, from politics to soccer to
cold showers. By analyzing their responses, researchers were able to
determine what common sense has dictated since time immemorial — some
people are just negative nellies.
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