Selective-Positivity

“We selectively remember our hits, yet we conveniently forget our misses.”

Selective-positivity is similar to placebo-thinking, where one tends to create false-thoughts and fallacious-beliefs in order to rationalize and support one’s desired and comforting-feelings. Selective-positivity is also often associated with motivated-reasoning and confirmation-bias, whereby the person engaging in motivated-reasoning selectively justifies and rationalizes with reasons as to why one continues thinking or continues doing certain things. Additionally, through confirmation-bias, one looks for real or fabricated reasons or justifications that support one’s desired or preferred conclusion or behavior. For example, gamblers have a tendency of remembering the few big wins, but they tend to forget the many losses; because, by selectively remembering their big wins, they can override the memories of their losses, thus, they can give themselves further reason and opportunity to continue their gambling behavior.

Theory of Self-Relativity has termed and defines “selective-positivity” as “one’s tendency to selectively recall positive-memories, in order to improve one’s feelings and to justify one’s behavior.”