Fading Affect Bias
📖Daily Reading
Deuteronomy 31-32
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Deuteronomy 31: 19-20
“So write down the words of this song, and teach it to the people of Israel. Help them learn it, so it may serve as a witness for me against them. For I will bring them into the land I swore to give their ancestors - a long flowing with milk and honey. There they will become prosperous, eat all the food they want, and become fat. But they will begin to worship other gods: they will despise me and break my covenant”
There is a psychological phenomenon called ‘fading affect bias’ or FAB which means that memories associated with negative emotions tend to fade or are forgotten more quickly that those associated with positive emotions. In general this is a good thing, it helps us as individuals and as a collective move forward and stay stable and fairly content etc.. But it can also allow us to fall back into to ways of behaving or habits that we don’t want to repeat. This can feel very frustrating when you are caught it this cycle.
As we can see from the passage in Deuteronomy the Israelites had this FAB. So this is not something new, humans have been dealing with these affect biases since the beginning of time. A good example of why FAB is overall a good thing is childbirth. The process of giving birth is extremely painful, but often viewed as overall a positive experience that is worth repeating because the positive feelings of love that the mom has for her new baby. So when looking back over all on the ‘situation’ we tend to have positive memories. It doesn’t mean that we completely forget the pain, but the joy and love outweigh it so that overall we see it as a whole experience in a positive light.
This is part of what was happening with the Israelites even when they were asking to go back to Egypt and be enslaved again, their positive memories of shelter, familiarity and some tasty foods were stronger than their memories concerning the negatives of hard work, hard living conditions, oppression etc… This also partly explains why they kept finding themselves in this cycle and why God and Moses know it will happen again even when they will be delivered into the promised land. It was a conditional promise and yet they still forget, and say ‘will God really do that, and even if he does, was it really that bad?”
The trouble that FAB can cause for us that have developed some maladaptive coping strategies and habits, is that in order to stay on our new chosen path of being and with new habits and lifestyles that we are creating is that we NEED to remember how bad it was! Just like the Israelites needed to. God gave them all of the tools, scrolls, covenants, songs, traditional festival of remembrance, instructions etc.. and this still wasn’t enough! What is a human supposed to do?
So now that we in modern times also have the good news of the gospel and some knowledge of emerging brain science and psychology what can we do about this very real and in normal circumstances very good feature of how our brain works. Knowledge when applied is power! Some of us are more prone to FAB than others, so first step is some self awareness on where you fall on the spectrum. I am a sometimes toxically positive person, so I am personally high on the spectrum. For me being involved in communities and becoming a coach are a great way to help me not fall victim to FAB with my own bad habits. If you are more past negative prone, you may need to apply these things to help you remember the positive of where your are going as well.
Here are some practical things you can do:
- participate and support or accountability group
- stay connected and participate in a like minded community
- read and listen books and podcasts- keep learning and growing
- hire a coach or a therapist - stay accountable
- have a mentor
- have reminders (anchors) of not only the positive but the negative you need to remember
- regularly read and recommit to your ‘why’
- regularly remind yourself of the truth about the negatives you need to remember
- journal or find a way to process your inner thoughts regularly
- meditate and/or pray consistently
- make a plan to keep growing and learning and stick to it
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Can you think of an instance where you experienced this? What are some things that you need to add to your life to help guard against it?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Deuteronomy 33-34
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