Electropositive can be understood as a chemical property describing an atom's ability to release the electrons. Because elements on the left side of the periodic table group IA has elements with only one electron in the valence shell, the energy required to gain electrons is significantly higher compared with the energy required to lose the only electron to gain complete octet. As a result, the elements on the left side of the periodic table generally lose electrons when forming bonds and the elements of group IA are most electron positive.