The negativity effect and its implications for initial interaction

Kellermann, Kathy

doi:10.1080/03637758409390182

Cited by 121 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Specifically, if young infants typically had positive everyday interactions, then their evaluative neutral point, rather than being equidistant from positive and negative evaluations, would shift closer to positive evaluations; this would 7 Some researchers (e.g., Bohner, Bless, Schwarz, & Strack, 1988;Kellermann, 1984) have attempted to rule this out by manipulating the probability and the negativity of events independently and revealing a negativity bias even when the negative and positive events occurred equally frequently (see also Eastwood, Smilek, & Merikle, 2001;Fox et al, 2000;Hansen & Hansen, 1988;Öhman, Lundqvist, & Esteves, 2001;Pratto & John, 1991). Note, however, that if in our daily lives, we do generally experience more positive than negative outcomes, and negative outcomes do therefore stand out, then when faced with an artificial research situation in which there is an equal or higher probability of negative outcomes, we might nevertheless display a negativity bias (Baumeister et al, 2001;Taylor, 1991).…”

Section: A the Negativity Bias In Attention To Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

Vaish¹,

Großmann²,

Woodward³

2008

Psychological Bulletin

939

615

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There is ample empirical evidence for an asymmetry in the way that adults use positive versus negative information to make sense of their world; specifically, across an array of psychological situations and tasks, adults display a negativity bias, or the propensity to attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information. This bias is argued to serve critical evolutionarily adaptive functions, but its developmental presence and ontogenetic emergence have never seriously been considered. Here, we argue for the existence of the negativity bias in early development, evident especially in research on infant social referencing but also in other developmental domains. We discuss ontogenetic mechanisms underlying the emergence of this bias, and explore not only its evolutionary but also its developmental functions and consequences. Throughout, we suggest ways to further examine the negativity bias in infants and older children, and we make testable predictions that would help clarify the nature of the negativity bias during early development. KeywordsNegativity bias; Affective asymmetry; Social-cognitive development; Emotion; Social referencing Infants are exposed to a great deal of social information from birth, and their ability to use this information effectively is critical for development in many domains and for survival in general. This raises several important questions: do infants attend equally to all facets of this information, or do they attend to certain facets more than others? Do they, in addition, learn and remember particular kinds of information better than others? What evolutionary and developmental consequences do these ways of approaching the environment have? In this paper, we propose that infants display a negativity bias: that is, infants attend more to, are more influenced by, and use to a greater degree negative rather than positive facets of their environment. We propose possible ontogenetic pathways for the emergence of the negativity bias, and we argue that this bias serves important evolutionary and developmental functions.

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Section: A the Negativity Bias In Attention To Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

Vaish¹,

Großmann²,

Woodward³

2008

Psychological Bulletin

939

615

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Both, however, reported a significant drop in perceptions of listeners' competence by the poststudy follow-up 3 weeks later. It could be that tellers were operating under the negativity bias, or the tendency to make more negative attributions for others when not afforded the chance to interact with them (Kellerman, 1984). In other words, rating the other person's communication competence outside the interactional context may help to explain decreases in the poststudy perceptions of competence.…”

Section: Perception Of Friends' Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Benefits and Risks of Telling and Listening to Stories of Difficulty Over Time: Experimentally Testing the Expressive Writing Paradigm in the Context of Interpersonal Communication Between Friends

Kellas

Horstman

Willer

et al. 2014

Health Communication

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“…Kellermann (1984) hypothesized that bad is stronger than good because it is usually extreme, unexpected, or unusual and therefore captures awareness. Just as movement in a still room attracts attention, so negative (novel) events capture more attention than positive (normal) patterns (Thorngate, 1976;Turner & Barlow, 1951).…”

Section: Explaining Negative and Positive Inclinationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paradox in Positive Organizational Change

Cameron

2008

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

154

124

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Positive organizational change is a paradox. On one hand, natural human inclinations toward the positive and heliotropic tendencies foster a proclivity toward positive change in human systems. On the other hand, human beings react more strongly to negative than to positive stimuli, so the presence of negative events overshadows positive events. Paradoxically, both tendencies—toward the positive and in response to the negative— are important enablers of positive change, but because the negative usually dominates, positive factors have to be given extra emphasis for positive change to occur. The concept of “positive” has created a great deal of controversy and confusion in organizational studies, spawning critics as well as promoters. The major connotations of this concept in organizational scholarship are clarified, and a way to reconcile the paradox of positive change is proposed. New investigations of positive organizational change are introduced that address various aspects of the positive change paradox.

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The negativity effect and its implications for initial interaction

Cited by 121 publications

References 54 publications

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

The Benefits and Risks of Telling and Listening to Stories of Difficulty Over Time: Experimentally Testing the Expressive Writing Paradigm in the Context of Interpersonal Communication Between Friends

Paradox in Positive Organizational Change

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