The pull to look at the negative is a very strong one—the Berkeley psychologist Rick Hanson sums up the research memorably when he says, “the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones”—which is why making this a conscious habit is so important.

Anyone who sells—whether they’re trying to convince customers to make a purchase or colleagues to make a change—must contend with wave after wave of rebuffs, refusals, and repudiations.

How to stay afloat amid that ocean of rejection is the second essential quality in moving others. I call this quality “buoyancy.” Hall exemplifies it. Recent social science explains it. And if you understand buoyancy’s three components—which apply before, during, and after any effort to move others—you can use it effectively in your own life.

Before: Interrogative Self-Talk …

Tell yourself you can do it. Declaring an unshakable belief in your inherent awesomeness inflates a sturdy raft that can keep you bobbing in an ocean of rejection.

Alas, the social science shows something different and more nuanced…

Yes, positive self-talk is generally more effective than negative self-talk. But the most effective self-talk of all doesn’t merely shift emotions. It shifts linguistic categories. It moves from making statements to asking questions…

On average, the self-questioning group solved nearly 50 percent more puzzles than the self-affirming group…

The reasons are twofold. First, the interrogative, by its very form, elicits answers—and within those answers are strategies for actually carrying out the task…

The second reason is related. Interrogative self-talk, the researchers say, “may inspire thoughts about autonomous or intrinsically motivated reasons to pursue a goal.”...

During: Positivity Ratios …

Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina is the leading researcher on positivity—her catchall term for a basket of emotions including amusement, appreciation, joy, interest, gratitude, and inspiration. Negative emotions, she says, evolved to narrow people’s vision and propel their behavior toward survival in the moment (I’m frightened, so I’ll flee. I’m angry, so I’ll fight). By contrast, “Positive emotions do the opposite: They broaden people’s ideas about possible actions, opening our awareness to a wider range of thoughts and . . . making us more receptive and more creative,” she writes.

The broadening effect of positive emotions has important consequences for moving others. Consider both sides of a typical transaction. For the seller, positive emotions can widen her view of her counterpart and his situation. Where negative emotions help us see trees, positive ones reveal forests. And that, in turn, can aid in devising unexpected solutions to the buyer’s problem. Other studies show that positive emotions can expand our behavioral repertoires and heighten intuition and creativity, all of which enhance our effectiveness…

Fredrickson and Losada round up to 3. Once positive emotions outnumbered negative emotions by 3 to 1—that is, for every three instances of feeling gratitude, interest, or contentment, they experienced only one instance of anger, guilt, or embarrassment—people generally flourished. Those below that ratio usually did not. But Fredrickson and Losada also found that positivity had an upper limit. Too much can be as unproductive as too little. Once the ratio hit about 11 to 1, positive emotions began doing more harm than good. Beyond that balance of positive-to-negative, life becomes a festival of Panglossian cluelessness, where self-delusion suffocates self-improvement. Some negativity—what Fredrickson and Losada call “appropriate negativity”—is essential. Without it, “behavior patterns calcify.” Negative emotions offer us feedback on our performance, information on what’s working and what’s not, and hints about how to do better.

Without negativity you . . . lose touch with reality. You’re not genuine. In time, you drive people away.” So allow yourself what she dubs “appropriate negativity

Numerous studies show that we process negative and positive information differently. You might say we’re saddled with a “negativity bias.” We take in “bad” information, including small mistakes and failures, more readily than “good” information. We have more trouble letting go of bad compared to good thoughts. We remember the negative things that happen to us more vividly and for longer than we do the positive ones. We pay more attention to negative than positive feedback. People interpret negative facial expressions more quickly than positive ones. Bad, simply put, is stronger than good. This is not to say we agree with or value it more but rather that we notice it more.