Inherently Negative?

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Over the years here, I've noticed that a certain type of thread is always very popular, the "least favorite/overrated" type, e.g. 'what's your least favorite TV show?' or 'what video games do you think are overrated?' or the L&D flavored deal-breaker lists, and that these threads seem to draw more responses than their positive equivalents. Anyone else noticed this, and find it a bit off-putting?

I mean I understand that not everyone is happy and successful and cheery all the time, but sometimes the constant Eeyore routine grinds me down about this site.

Yes. And Yes.

Not much anyone can do about it except just not read the threads.

I think people must like to complain. Or maybe they are better able to remember things that they dislike rather than those that they like. I think I read an article about negative experiences being easier to remember than positive ones.

It doesn't really bother me too much. I ignore a lot of threads. I think the counting ones are more annoying, because I don't understand the point.

Oh, I get that, I'm just curious if anyone else has noticed this, and whether they think it's part of the Autistic condition, or maybe a product of the subsection of AS people who choose to regularly use WP. It didn't seem quite so negative when I was running an AS meetup, so I'm kind of leaning towards selection bias myself.

Last edited by Dox47 on 18 Apr 2016, 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it's that people are more likely to complain about things that are bad than things that are good. Like hotel reviews people are more likely to post about a bad experience than say this was great.

Human tendency it's part of human nature. To focus on the negatives such as people's greed etc. and not be happy for what they got.

Honestly, for some of us, it's just a natural trait. It's not done on purpose or anything.

I myself am probably one of the most negative people on this forum; I dont call myself "Misery" for nothing. But it's not on purpose, it's just the way I am naturally, and I refuse to try to be something that I'm not. I dont see the point in doing that.

I figure... if people have a problem with it, well... it's not like they're forced to read my posts. And that goes for anyone else here too that may make negative posts.


It's not just that though. We get alot of people here that have a tendency for depression, and when you're depressed, you tend to be more negative about things as a result even if you're normally a positive person. So I think some of the negativity on this forum comes from people being in low moods because of their troubles.

Yeaa, I'm just a negative person. Nothing I can do about that.

I suspect that regularly meeting up in person with other AS people could reduce depression. It certainly would for me.

I see it in an entirely different way, I guess because I study working autistic adults. Identifying errors in a sea of correct information is an autistic talent- common in autistic people, very uncommon in neurotypicals. That is why in professional settings you will often see a manager turn to the aspie team member and ask what (s)he thinks about this or that plan before moving forward. They may ask in private and may not give the aspie credit, but they are often asked. This is because the aspie will see things other people will not and will not be shy in calling out the problem. This is a great trait to have!

Maybe it's difficult when someone asks you if they look fat in something or asks for your opinion and don't really want to hear it, but as a general survival skill- it's REALLY important to see errors, or negative information. Think about all the cavemen aspies who would have walked into the mouths of snakes without being able to see bad things.

You should see me at the my school library which. I am right now every once in a while I'll be pacing around the isles and notice something out of place, I told here it is part of my ability to recognize patterns. Which can be used for many different things.

I am the majority of the time. I attribute it to being bullied and harassed for the majority of my life.

I know it's wrong to be cynical all the time and I am trying to become more positive, but it's hard when you're stuck in a mindset where you constantly get pissed off at others for the smallest thing.

Negative situations tend to create negative expressions, a few people doing well doesn't mean everyone is. People that go to meet ups are probably at least moderately better off to begin with than those that don't, the worst off don't never make it that far but everybody can plop themselves in front of computer.

I would imagine both would be related to the same general way of processing information. There was an academic journal article that came out awhile ago. I can hunt it up for you (or anyone else) if you are interested. Just going off of my memory, they gave autistic people and non-autistic people lists of correct things with errors here and there that could be detected visually. The autistic people displayed far superior error finding as compared to the other groups. I'm saying "lists" but "groups of things" would probably be more accurate.