Emotions Have A Negative Bias
By Steven Stosny
To the great misfortune of human relationships, our emotions are negatively biased. This means they get priority processing in the brain.
Probably because negative emotions are more important for immediate survival - giving us the instant capability to avoid snakes in the grass and fend off saber tooth tigers - they gained priority processing in the primitive brain and continue to have great influence in modern times.
So if you come home from work in a fairly good mood and find that your spouse is brooding or upset, emotional attunement will bring your spouse up a little (toward you) and bring you down a lot (towards them).
To keep from being "brought down" by the other's negative mood, many couples attempt to dull their sensitivity to the other's emotional world. This puts them squarely on the road to divorce, as it stenches the lifeblood of relationships -- compassion and appreciation -- both of which require openness to attunement.
Attunement begins with the first stirrings of life, as newborns naturally tune their emotions to those of their caregivers and vice versa - just try reading the paper when your baby is crying or calming her down when you're upset. When parents are anxious, infants are anxious, and when parents feel loving, their babies feel loving, too, as long as they're not experiencing physical discomfort. Throughout the lifespan, sensitivity to the internal experience of loved ones is the cornerstone of empathy, compassion, support, romance, and intimacy.
Unfortunately, the force of attunement is more powerful with negative emotions, such as resentment, annoyance, anxiety, or anger than with the positive emotions.