Why do people tend to remember the bad things?

[RosieLeaLovesTea]

I am tending to remember more negative experiences from my own childhood. There must have been good times but I can’t really remember them. I’m trying to do thibgs differently with my own family. We have had some amazing holidays. We do lots of family days out. But yet still they come out with things where they will remember the one day when the family has had an argument?

So psychologists have studied this phenomenon.

One theory is it’s evolutionary. It’s more important to remember bad things to protect yourself from being in that situation/acting like that/ensuing the event doesn’t happen again.

The point of memory is to learn things that help you survive - so you acquire skills and experience. Experience of bad things helps you avoid them in the future.

Are you sure? Don’t both things stick?

It's to do with the amygdala - the emotion processing part of the brain. There is a link between stimulating the amygdala and memory. The more intense the emotion the stronger the memory.