Many writers, preachers, and academics have touted the power of thinking positively. There is a giant industry built around self-help books and videos designed to teach us how to overcome negative thinking in order to build a more positive outcome in our lives. Alison Ledgerwood, a social psychologist at UCDavis, gives an insightful TED talk about the power of negative thinking. In numerous studies, she and her team found that negative thinking exerted an inordinate influence on the opinions and mood of participants. . She found that the negatives have a larger and longer lasting impact than the positives. Negatives tend to stick in our minds more than positives. Ledgerwood’s…