Negativity bias is the tendency for negative events, information or experiences to have a greater psychological impact than neutral or positive events of equivalent magnitude. Research across attention, memory, decision-making and emotional response has found that people notice negative stimuli faster, remember them more vividly and weight them more heavily in evaluations than comparable positive stimuli, a pattern summarized in the influential phrase that bad is stronger than good. The tendency is generally understood as having an evolutionary basis, since organisms that were more attentive to threats and losses than to equivalent opportunities and gains would have had a survival advantage.
Facts
Core ClaimThe asymmetry shows up across attention, learning, memory, impression formation and risk-based decision-making, so a negative event or piece of information of a given intensity tends to shape judgment and behavior more strongly than an equally intense positive one. 1 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
In Branch
Source Wikipedia: Negativity bias
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Negativity bias
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph, definition
Negativity bias, also known as the negativity effect, is a cognitive bias that human cognition is relatively more affected by a negative affect than an equally potent positive affect.
lead section, defining sentence
Negativity bias, also known as the negativity effect, is a cognitive bias that human cognition is relatively more affected by a negative affect than an equally potent positive affect.
- History/origin section, Kanouse and Hanson (1972)
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
Research across attention, memory, decision-making and emotional response has found that people notice negative stimuli faster, remember them more vividly and weight them more heavily in evaluations than comparable positive stimuli, a pattern summarized in the influential phrase that bad is stronger than good.
In Branch: Cognitive Psychology, Categories
Wikipedia article 'Negativity bias' is filed under Category:Cognitive biases.
View the Source The Decision Lab: Negativity Bias
Why is the news always so depressing, opening definitionQuote, Why is the news always so depressing, opening definition
The negativity bias is a cognitive bias that results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events.
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