Negatives have more emotional impact than positives. I’ve observed this when reading through student comments on my teaching. I don’t give much attention to the many nice comments whereas a few nasty ones stick in my mind.

My colleagues report the same thing. They fixate on a bit of negative feedback even though it’s the exception.

This is an example of the psychological power of negatives or, in other words, the power of bad. It’s a phenomenon that plays a role in many facets of life.

In 2001, a long paper appeared in the Review of General Psychology titled “Bad is stronger than good.” The authors provided lots of experimental evidence that negatives have a greater psychological impact than positives. In the same year, another long paper, by different authors, appeared making the same argument.

Now, for those who don’t care to read scholarly papers in social psychology, there’s an accessible treatment: The Power of Bad, by science writer John Tierney and prominent psychologist Roy Baumeister. They explain this feature of human mental processing and spell out its implications in all sorts of arenas. There is much to learn.

Applications

In economics, one manifestation of the power of bad is called loss aversion. Suppose you’ve bought some shares and need to sell them in the next year. If you’re like most people, you’ll be much more eager to sell if the shares have increased in value. But if they’ve declined in value, you may feel like holding on until they go up again. The prospect of losing money has more of a psychological impact than the prospect of gaining an equal amount.

Some of the experimental results are eye-opening. In one study, “The students would blame a ticket broker for selling them worse seats than promised, but they wouldn’t show extra appreciation if the seats were better than promised” (p. 57). The lesson: don’t overpromise.

In US football, teams nearly always kick the ball when in a situation called fourth down. This is a conservative approach: it prevents a bad outcome but sacrifices the possibility of a good one. A coach named Kevin Kelley showed that it was nearly always better not to kick on fourth down. At first his team’s fans were hostile to his innovations, but then his team started winning. However, other coaches weren’t willing to follow his example. The risk of loss of field position due to not kicking outweighed the much greater benefits. Fans are risk averse and hence so are coaches.

Personal relationships

You’re in a long-term relationship and want to maintain it. What should you do? One option is to seek opportunities to create positive feelings: an unexpected gift, a holiday together, a meal at a special restaurant. It seems obvious that this is the way to keep the relationship strong.

Tierney and Baumeister say that’s not correct. Positive experiences are helpful, but far more important is avoiding negatives. Their rule of thumb is that four positives are needed to counteract one negative.

Your partner or friend makes a hostile comment — or at least a comment that you interpret as hostile. You might be tempted to be defensive or to reply with a hostile comment of your own. Bad move! Interactions that escalate in a negative way are hard to overcome. They require lots of positives just to get back to an even keel. The insight from The Power of Bad is that not engaging in negative spirals can do far more to preserve a relationship than a host of compensating positives. If you can learn to hold back whenever you feel like making a nasty comment, you won’t need to compensate with moonlight dinners and exotic holidays.

Self-esteem

In the US and elsewhere, there has been a powerful movement to attempt to raise people’s self-esteem, on the assumption that higher self-esteem leads to better performance. Baumeister was a leading figure in challenging this movement, arguing that self-esteem is better understood as a consequence of good performance than as a cause.

            At some schools, everyone gets a prize, no matter how poorly they do. In comparison, Tierney and Baumeister tell about some US schools that harness the power of bad, giving critical feedback on assignments and intervening to improve teaching techniques. These schools, even in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, produce outstanding results. Students and teachers respond to the right sort of criticism far more than to praise.

Some managers attempt to soften their criticisms of employees by providing praise immediately beforehand and afterwards, in a “praise sandwich.” However, the initial praise has little impact because the criticism absorbs so much mental energy that employees don’t recall it. When it comes to giving criticism, Tierney and Baumeister have specific advice. One suggestion is to ask employees whether they want good news or bad news first. Another is to ease into criticism by first asking “How do you think things are going?” and looking for signs that the employee recognises the possibility of improvement. (Some don’t.) Another suggestion: when giving praise, be lavish and creative. Most people don’t find this overblown, even when they’ve been told in advance that it might not be accurate. Flattery works!

Relationships at work

At workplaces, some workers are pleasant while others are abrasive. Co-workers who are encouraging and positive can boost a team’s performance, but those who are unsupportive and negative can cause damage. You might imagine that the different personality types would cancel each other out so that the performance of a team would reflect the average personality score. However, studies show bad is more powerful than good.

“… the strongest predictor of team functioning turned out to be the score of the worst person in the group. One lazy, disagreeable, emotionally unstable person was enough to sabotage the whole team, and it didn’t matter if there was one particularly wonderful member of the group. The star couldn’t compensate for the dud’s damage.” (p. 141)

How to make a good impression

Imagine you’re the manager of a hotel. Your guests go on social media and post ratings and judgements. That’s awkward, because the negative comments from one disgruntled guest can outweigh numerous positive comments from satisfied ones. Another challenge is that rival hotels might try to sabotage your ratings by putting up fake negative comments.

How can you overcome the negative posts? The only reliable way is to overwhelm them with positive ones. But how? One US hotel chain, the Library Hotel Collection, has showed the way. Adele Gutman, the manager of one hotel in the chain, the Casablanca in New York City, pores over negative comments and notes the key points in a guest’s stay that give rise to grievances. She seeks to smother each guest with positives, especially at these key points. For example, each arriving guest is greeted warmly as if they are a visiting dignitary. Every complaint, no matter how ill-informed, is addressed promptly. When guests leave is a special time for positivity, because final impressions, along with first impressions, are crucial. Some guests might find this sort of treatment cloying but most love it. Each hotel in the chain is regularly rated among its city’s best despite the physical facilities not being the most luxurious.

The Pollyanna Principle

Pollyanna was a fictional heroine who, no matter how bad things were, always looked for the good in a situation. After she was paralysed in an accident, she nevertheless gave thanks for the time in her life when she was able to walk. To call someone a Pollyanna is not a compliment. Instead, it suggests they are out of touch with reality.

Tierney and Baumeister turn this everyday attitude on its head. In their view, being a Pollyanna is functional. Because bad is stronger than good, it’s helpful to spend plenty of time counting your blessings. This will make you happier.

A crisis of crises?

The news media thrive on disasters. News reports are filled with stories of doom and gloom: wars, disasters, murders, pandemics and lurking dangers. Editors and journalists who subscribe to the slogan “If it bleeds, it leads” are simply responding to what attracts audiences. The result is that the world seems to be a very dangerous place. People who watch lots of television are more likely to overestimate the level of crime in their neighbourhood.

John Tierney

            Tierney and Baumeister apply their understanding of the power of bad to a range of controversial public issues, including crime, drugs, GMOs and climate change. They argue that these problems have been exaggerated, and that despite the prophets of doom, the world is a far better place today than any time in the past.

Roy Baumeister

            While it’s valuable to take into account the power of bad in examining social issues, this is only one factor. In describing controversies, Tierney and Baumeister present the arguments on only one side — the side they think is correct — and assume that those with contrary views are being driven by the power of bad. This is too simple: there are other important factors. For many of the controversies, they don’t address the role of vested interests. In drug debates, for example, there are powerful interests trying to dampen concern about legal drugs and to raise the alarm about illegal ones. In some controversies, scientists trying to raise concerns are censored, undermined or even dismissed: the power of bad is used to downplay problems.

Tierney and Baumeister seem to assume that all innovation is beneficial. They misrepresent the precautionary principle as meaning “never do anything for the first time.”

Another problem is that in many controversies, each side tries to raise an alarm. In the vaccination debate, proponents highlight the dangers of infectious diseases while critics highlight adverse reactions to vaccination. In the fluoridation debate, proponents highlight the dangers of tooth decay while opponents focus on adverse health effects of fluoride. In these and other controversies, negativity bias does not provide much guidance for judging the rights and wrongs of the competing claims.

No doubt negativity bias is influencing governments’ and people’s responses to the coronavirus. Exactly how I leave to your judgement.

Conclusion

It is extremely valuable to understand negativity bias and take it into account in your daily life, in all sorts of ways. The Power of Bad is an engaging treatment that can alert you to a host of possibilities and help you avoid seeking excess safety. However, it’s also important not to dismiss all warnings.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au