Negativity dominance processes the bad more thoroughly than the good
The natural state of human existence is to pay more attention to bad news (or possibilities, implications, outcomes, etc.) than to good news (etc.).
The psychologist Paul Rozin, an expert on disgust, observed that a single cockroach will completely wreck the appeal of a bowl of cherries, but a cherry will do nothing at all for a bowl of cockroaches. As he points out, the negative trumps the positive in many ways, and loss aversion is one of many manifestations of a broad negativity dominance. Other scholars, in a paper titled “Bad Is Stronger Than Good,” summarized the evidence as follows: “Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones.”[^1]
This can hinder strategic thinking and innovation because the mind more readily processes all the things that could go wrong (i.e., loss aversion) rather than all the possibilities that the new strategy or innovation could afford.
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