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Negativity bias is the tendency to give threats, losses and criticism more attention and weight than equally strong good news. It is why one harsh comment can stay with you longer than several kind ones.

Psychology

Mind

The story behind the card

The term was popularised by an influential 2001 paper by the psychologists Paul Rozin and Edward Royzman at the University of Pennsylvania. The same year, Roy Baumeister and colleagues published a review titled “Bad Is Stronger Than Good”, which found the pattern in first impressions, relationships, feedback and memory. In experiments, people are slower to name the ink colour of a negative word than of a positive one, a sign that bad news holds attention. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky found a related effect with money: losing a sum feels roughly twice as strong as gaining it. A common explanation is evolutionary, since missing a danger costs more than missing a chance. Precise ratios deserve doubt, though. A famous claim that people need 2.9 good feelings for every bad one was shown in 2013 to rest on flawed mathematics.

Türkçe oku
İnsan, tehditlere, kayıplara ve eleştirilere aynı güçteki iyi haberlerden daha çok dikkat eder ve onlara daha çok önem verir; psikologlar buna “olumsuzluk yanlılığı” der. Tek bir sert yorumun birkaç güzel sözden daha uzun süre akılda kalması bu yüzdendir.

Terim, Pennsylvania Üniversitesi'nden psikologlar Paul Rozin ile Edward Royzman'ın 2001'de yayımladığı etkili bir makaleyle yaygınlaştı. Aynı yıl Roy Baumeister ve arkadaşları “Kötü, İyiden Güçlüdür” başlıklı bir derleme yayımladı ve aynı eğilimi ilk izlenimlerde, ilişkilerde, geri bildirimde ve bellekte gösterdi. Deneylerde insanlardan sözcüklerin hangi renkte yazıldığını söylemeleri istendiğinde, olumsuz sözcüklerde daha yavaş kalırlar; demek ki kötü bir sözcük dikkati daha uzun süre tutar. Daniel Kahneman ile Amos Tversky parayla ilgili benzer bir etki buldu: Bir miktar parayı kaybetmenin acısı, aynı miktarı kazanmanın sevincinden yaklaşık iki kat güçlüdür. Yaygın bir açıklama evrimseldir: Bir tehlikeyi gözden kaçırmak, bir fırsatı kaçırmaktan daha pahalıya patlar. Yine de kesin oranlara temkinle yaklaşmak gerekir: Her olumsuz duyguyu dengelemek için 2,9 olumlu duygu gerektiğini söyleyen ünlü oranın hatalı bir matematiğe dayandığı 2013'te ortaya kondu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Negativity bias
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