Is good more alike than bad? Positive-negative asymmetry in the differentiation between options. A study on the evaluation of fictitious political profiles

Abstract

Our research focuses on the perception of difference in the evaluations of positive and negative options. The literature provides evidence for two opposite effects: on the one hand, negative objects are said to be more differentiated (e.g., density hypothesis), on the other, people are shown to see greater differences between positive options (e.g., liking-breeds-differentiation principle). In our study, we investigated the perception of difference between fictitious political candidates, hypothesizing greater differences among the evaluations of favorable candidates. Additionally, we analyzed how positive and negative information affect candidate evaluation, predicting further asymmetries. In three experiments, participants evaluated various candidate profiles presented in a numeric and narrative manner. The evaluation tasks were designed as individual or joint assessments. In all three studies, we found more differentiation between positive than negative options. Our research suggests that after exceeding a certain, relatively small level of negativity, people do not see any further increase in negativity. The increase in positivity, on the other hand, is more gradual, with greater differentiation among positive options. Our findings are discussed in light of cognitive-experiential self-theory and density hypothesis.

Similarity judgements: the comparison of normative predictions and subjective evaluations – A study of the ratio model of similarity in social context

“…Thirdly, we conducted only one study in which we investigated the relationship between objective and subjective similarity estimates and the effect of additional positive and negative features on similarity judgements. Although rather scarce on its own, the paper is a part of our string of publications on various instances of positive-negative asymmetry in similarity judgements ( Falkowski et al, 2018 , 2021 ; Falkowski and Jabłońska, 2018 ; Jablonska et al, 2022 ) and as such provides good evidence for the observed effects. Still, the comparison of normative predictions of the ratio model and subjective similarity estimates should be further verified on objects other than political candidates.…”

“…Accordingly, two additional positive features, being more similar, may have provided less positive evidence that would prompt individuals to alter their appraisal of an unfavourable candidate compared to two more differentiated negative features that carried sufficient information to diminish the evaluation of a favourable candidate. Alternatively, the absence of an effect of additional positive features on similarity judgments can be attributed to a lesser differentiation between negative options compared to positive ones, which is the focus of our current research (Jablonska et al, 2022).…”