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Negativity Bias

Negativity bias is the tendency for negative information and events to have a greater psychological impact than positive information of equal magnitude. You will learn why a single piece of critical feedback can outweigh several pieces of praise in someone's memory of a conversation, and why feedback-givers need to deliberately calibrate for this asymmetry. You will use this concept to explain why praise-to-criticism ratios matter in feedback design.

Chief Galen Tyrol Video

Negativity Bias: Why Criticism Outweighs Praise of Equal Size

Explains why negative information and events carry more psychological weight than equally-sized positive ones, and why that asymmetry matters when calibrating praise-to-criticism ratios in feedback.