Is good more alike than bad? Positive-negative asymmetry in the differentiation between options. A study on the evaluation of fictitious political profiles

Abstract

Our research focuses on the perception of difference in the evaluations of positive and negative options. The literature provides evidence for two opposite effects: on the one hand, negative objects are said to be more differentiated (e.g., density hypothesis), on the other, people are shown to see greater differences between positive options (e.g., liking-breeds-differentiation principle). In our study, we investigated the perception of difference between fictitious political candidates, hypothesizing greater differences among the evaluations of favorable candidates. Additionally, we analyzed how positive and negative information affect candidate evaluation, predicting further asymmetries. In three experiments, participants evaluated various candidate profiles presented in a numeric and narrative manner. The evaluation tasks were designed as individual or joint assessments. In all three studies, we found more differentiation between positive than negative options. Our research suggests that after exceeding a certain, relatively small level of negativity, people do not see any further increase in negativity. The increase in positivity, on the other hand, is more gradual, with greater differentiation among positive options. Our findings are discussed in light of cognitive-experiential self-theory and density hypothesis.

Keywords: candidate evaluation; negativity effect; object differentiation; positive-negative asymmetry; positive-negative asymmetry in social discrimination; similarity judgments.

FIGURE 1

Means of the similarity to an ideal and bad politician for candidates analyzed in study 1. Captions minus 48, minus 24, 0, plus 24, and plus 48 refer to the overall valence of candidate profiles. Brackets mark significant differences (p < 0.01) between the analyzed candidates.