Why is there no negativity bias in evaluative conditioning?

What is it about?

Have you noticed how our attitudes about something can shift depending on what it’s presented with? That’s the idea behind Evaluative Conditioning (EC). For example, if people keep seeing a product logo paired with either happy or unpleasant images, their opinion of that product might change. Usually, negative information has more impact on people. In our example, unpleasant images should lead to more change than happy images – this is called “negativity bias”. However, when we looked at data from many EC studies, we found no evidence of this bias. We have what we call a cognitive-ecological model that predicts negativity bias because negative information is often rarer, which makes it stand out in memory, creating a negativity bias. EC experiments, on the other hand, usually present positive and negative information with the same frequency. The interesting prediction is that if positive information is rare, we might see a “positivity bias” instead. To test this, we conducted five experiments. When negative information was rare, participants showed a negativity bias. But when positive information was rare, they showed a positivity bias. This suggests EC studies miss the usual negativity bias because their designs don’t match real-life conditions, where positive and negative information are distributed unevenly. So, whether it’s about logos or life, both what is presented together and how often we encounter information can influence what sticks with us!

Featured Image

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Some environments have more positive information (e.g., spending time with friends), but other have more negative information (e.g., watching the news). These uneven frequencies may have an important role in how people learn their likes and dislikes.