On a table sits a basket of strawberries. Most of them are fresh, but about 15% are spoiled. Children were divided into two groups: one group was asked to pick out the fresh strawberries, while the other was asked to find the spoiled ones. Afterwards, the children were asked how many spoiled strawberries they thought there were. Interestingly, those who had selected the fresh ones gave fairly accurate estimates. But those who focused on the spoiled ones said there were more spoiled strawberries than fresh. They had mistakenly seen some fresh strawberries as spoiled. The same results occurred when the experiment was repeated with adults.
This experiment, led by Austrian psychologist Elizabeth Lukas, demonstrates the negativity effect—a psychological phenomenon where focusing on the negative makes it easier to perceive even the positive in a negative light. In other words, what we see often depends on what we choose to focus on.
Each of us has our own basket of strawberries. Which ones are you holding right now? If they seem spoiled, take another look from a different angle—they might have been fresh all along.
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