Negative-centered

A personality, viewpoint, or system described as 'negative-centered' fundamentally prioritizes and emphasizes negative aspects, consequences, emotions, or outcomes. This focus can manifest as dwelling on potential problems, anticipating failure, highlighting flaws, and generally approaching situations with a pessimistic or critical lens. It contrasts with perspectives that are optimistic, solution-oriented, or balanced. Such a focus often involves a disproportionate weight given to negativity, potentially affecting decision-making, relationships, and overall well-being. The underlying motivation behind such a focus can range from a desire for control and predictability to ingrained pessimism or a need for self-protection by anticipating the worst.

Negative-centered meaning with examples

• Her communication style was consistently negative-centered; always pointing out potential risks in projects and rarely acknowledging positive progress. This created tension and slowed down the team. Everyone began to second guess everything because she would immediately shoot down ideas. It became challenging to foster creativity because her concerns always trumped all other factors in decision making.
• The news channel's programming leaned towards being negative-centered, consistently emphasizing crime, disasters, and societal problems. The focus on the dark side of life, while possibly generating viewers, can also promote fear, anxiety and a sense of hopelessness. The coverage seldom displayed any acts of human kindness, or success.
• A negative-centered approach to parenting might involve focusing primarily on children's misbehavior and shortcomings, rather than recognizing their positive attributes and efforts. These parents will immediately bring the child into the presence of other people to scold or embarrass them. This could inadvertently undermine their self-esteem and stifle their development, creating an environment of constant criticism.
• The therapist's initial assessment was overly negative-centered, immediately focusing on the patient's deepest fears and anxieties without acknowledging their strengths and resilience. Her patients felt her therapy style was overly intrusive. The patients were already very anxious and this added to their fear.
• A company culture that is negative-centered may prioritize identifying and punishing mistakes over celebrating successes or learning from failures. Employee evaluations were based on negative points or bad behavior and they were afraid of getting in trouble. This can lead to low morale, decreased productivity, and a reluctance to take risks.