Research
- Hamlin et al. researched three-month olds and found that they process negativity just as adults do. This suggests that the negativity bias is instinctual in humans and not a conscious decision.
- John Cacioppo showed his participants pictures that he knew would arouse positive feelings, negative feelings, and neutral feelings. He recorded electrical activity in the brain’s cerebral cortex to show the information processing taking place. This demonstration showed that the participants’ electrical activity was stronger towards the negative stimuli compared to the positive or neutral stimuli.
- Researchers found that the negativity bias is noticeable during the work day. Amabile studied professionals and looked at what made their day good or bad. The findings showed that when professionals made even the slightest step forward on a project, their day was good; however, a minor setback resulted in a bad day. Furthermore, Amabile found that the negative setbacks were more than twice as strong as the positive steps forward when relating to the individual’s happiness that day.
- Researchers examined the negativity bias with respect to reward and punishment. The findings conclude that faster learning develops from negative reinforcement rather than positive reinforcement.
- Researchers analyzed language to study the negativity bias. There are more emotional words in the human dictionary that are negative. One study in particular found that 62% of the emotional words were negative and 32% were positive. 74% of the total words in the English language describe personality traits as negative.
- Researchers studied facial expressions in order to study the negativity bias. Participants’ facial expressions were monitored as they were exposed to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant odors. The results show that the participant’s negative reactions to unpleasant odors were stronger than the positive reactions to the pleasant odors. Researchers also tested negativity bias with children as the participants with respect to facial expressions. Children perceived both negative and neutral facial expressions as negative.
Read more about this topic: Negativity Bias
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