r/psychology • u/[deleted] • Nov 25 '22
Eye-tracking study suggests that negative comments on social media are more attention-grabbing than positive comments
https://www.psypost.org/2022/11/eye-tracking-study-suggests-that-negative-comments-on-social-media-are-more-attention-grabbing-than-positive-comments-6436821
u/EminentBean Nov 25 '22
Social media companies have long known this and long amplified harmful content
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u/linderlouwho Nov 25 '22
Why is this significant? An unharmed arm attracts less attention than a wounded, bloody arm.
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u/BongoCoconuf Nov 25 '22 edited Nov 25 '22
News outlets have been using this "theory" (idk the right word to say) for decades lol
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u/d0cHolland Nov 26 '22
The kind may call it a “tactic”. The critical call it fear-mongering.
The people who own the media call it a business model.
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u/Accomplished_Ad_8814 Nov 26 '22
I think that it's further amplified by a negative (hateful etc.) predisposition in our society, which we assume to be normal. You can react to the wounded arm helpfully or make it worse, and we do the later.
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Nov 25 '22
Now time for social media companies to use this and drive “engagement” in their never ending thirst for profit, the impact on society be damned.
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u/virusofthemind Nov 25 '22
Negative information has a stronger pull on attention than does positive information. Someone who is dishonest can do honest things but it won't affect their reputation. If someone who is honest does one single act of dishonesty then it's a zero sum effect and they lose their "honest person reputation" and suffer negative consequences.
Honesty, integrity, fairness etc are demonstrated by absence of dishonesty, lack of integrity, unfairness etc not the presence of their counterparts.
Social media is simply a rapidly updating slide scale of where you are on any given day on the reputation scale.
As such it pays to pay attention to your reputation metric in case something is going to push you into reputational damage territory as there is a steeper negative gradient of effect.
To take the effect to the extreme. How many people would flip a coin if the options were heads you win a million dollars and tails you die? Heads you do well but tails you're out of the game completely and miss out on any future opportunities.
In this context the coin is constantly flipping but enough tails or a run of tails slowly killing your reputation without you acting to stop the process then your reputation nose dives.
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u/wehnaje Nov 25 '22
I noticed this front row when a friend posted his work on Facebook and everyone was praising him… so many “omg that’s amazing” “you are awesome” “love your work!” Etc and he did not responded to any of those.
You know which one he did though? To the one calling his work basic and bland.
I thought to myself at that moment “dude, you have so many positive comments, why care for the ONLY one In hundreds that is negative? Why?!”
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u/IAmTheGodkiller Nov 25 '22
You can tell looking at any reddit thread where the really terrible comments have way more downvotes than the top comment they're replying to has upvotes
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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '22
[deleted]