It’s clear there’s significant negativity bias in our news media and pop culture in general. Fear and indignation sell. With good reason too. Rozin et. al (2001) “suggest that [one] feature of negative events that make them dominant is that negative entities are more contagious than positive entities.”(emphasis mine)
Media is interested in going viral, and thus contagion is key. Negativity is a pretty surefire way of getting there. It’s been that way for a while now, but has probably been hyper-accelerated in our new click-bait social media culture. Katsyri et. al. (2016) in their research on the effects of negativity in social media messaging and attention to news broadcasts confirmed this. They found that “as expected, negative tweets drew longer viewing times and elicited more attention to themselves than positive tweets.”
I know that in my own daily life as a stay-at-home parent, I deal with much fear-ridden anxiety around my children’s future, safety, and stability. Toxic positivity is one character flaw that I cannot be accused of.
This negative bias in my life, however, likely didn’t start when I became a parent. Indeed, Vaish et. al. (2008) “argue for the existence of the negativity bias in early development, evident especially in research on infant social refencing” suggesting that what is seen as commonplace in adults is rooted in our development from inception.
It’s important, as a general rule, to refrain from value judgements when trying to understand something, anything, better. It seems particularly pertinent when reflecting on our inherent negativity bias naturally being seen as a “bad” thing – with the semantic “negative” generally indicating something we want to avoid.
Our negativity bias is an evolutionary trait, one that has immense benefits towards long term physical survival. There is nothing inherently good or bad about an evolutionary trait. It just is. Molins et. al. (2022) – in their research on implicit negativity bias – argue very importantly for the casting away of value judgments when analyzing biases. In their trials they found that while participants indeed “displayed negativity bias” it was only at the “implicit level.” They suggest that “this bias was associated with loss aversion in risky decisions, and with greater performance through the ambiguous decisional task [highlighting] the need to contextualize biases, rather than draw general conclusions about whether they are inherently good or bad.” (emphasis mine).
When analyzing our negativity bias, it’s important to bear in mind this question: Is negativity bias really as powerful as we might think it is?
Taking a strong stance in favor of disabusing us from any a priori primacy afforded to negativity bias, Corns (2018) argues that “[t]he negativity bias – despite its wide acceptance in affective science and recent affirming introduction into philosophy – is nonetheless ill-informed.” She further suggests “[t]he broad claim that bad is stronger than good should be rejected” and predicates her analysis with the ontological premise that “‘Good’, ‘bad’, and ‘strong’ are all unclear in ways that matter for evaluating the hypothesis.”
In other words, we have to ask ourselves if our negativity bias is actually a more powerful force, evolutionary or otherwise, than our positivity bias? The Pollyanna Principle – our tendency at a subconscious level to focus on pleasant experiences – is just as much a part of our lives as is any inclination towards negativity, even with such strong rationales for it as survival and evolution.
Corns goes on to suggest that there are many “alternative hedonic hypotheses” that can offer “plausible alternative explanations for many of the results offered as supposed evidence for the negativity bias that remain worthy of investigation” – a suggestion we cannot ignore.
For don’t we also constantly seek pleasure as organisms? We are constantly desirous of feeling good. Hedonic motivation simply cannot be denied as a primary source of decision-making, both consciously and subconsciously.
It really is for each of us to empirically identify what motivates us and when, as we go about our daily lives. The pursuit of pleasure. The avoidance of pain. The pursuit of pain in order to access the pleasure at the end of said pain. The avoidance of pleasure to prevent the pain that comes from the ending of said pleasure. The dialectic of life experiences that are pleasurable pains and painful pleasures.
As with any reading, reflection, or train of thought, I am left with one acute realization at the end of it:
The more I know, the dumber I feel.
Salud.
Cited works:
Molins F, Martínez-Tomás C, Serrano MÁ. Implicit Negativity Bias Leads to Greater Loss Aversion and Learning during Decision-Making. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(24):17037. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192417037
Kätsyri J, Kinnunen T, Kusumoto K, Oittinen P, Ravaja N (2016) Negativity Bias in Media Multitasking: The Effects of Negative Social Media Messages on Attention to Television News Broadcasts. PLOS ONE 11(5): e0153712. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153712
Corns, J. Rethinking the Negativity Bias. Rev.Phil.Psych. 9, 607–625 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-018-0382-7
Vaish A, Grossmann T, Woodward A. Not all emotions are created equal: the negativity bias in social-emotional development. Psychol Bull. 2008 May;134(3):383-403. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.134.3.383. PMID: 18444702; PMCID: PMC3652533.
Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(4), 296–320. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2
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