Stereotype research emphasizes systematic processes over seemingly arbitrary contents, but content also may prove systematic. On the basis of stereotypes' intergroup functions, the stereotype content model hypothesizes that (a) 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, (b) frequent mixed clusters combine high warmth with low competence (paternalistic) or high competence with low warmth (envious), and (c) distinct emotions (pity, envy, admiration, contempt) differentiate the 4 competence-warmth combinations. Stereotypically, (d) status predicts high competence, and competition predicts low warmth. Nine varied samples rated gender, ethnicity, race, class, age, and disability out-groups. Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors). Stereotypically, status predicted competence, and competition predicted low warmth.

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A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition.

The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interpersonal interactions, and learning processes. 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. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and salience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found. Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena.

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Bad is Stronger than Good

Bad is stronger than good

We hypothesize that there is a general bias, based on both innate predispositions and experience, in animals and humans, to give greater weight to negative entities (e.g., events, objects, personal traits). This is manifested in 4 ways: (a) negative potency (negative entities are stronger than the equivalent positive entities), (b) steeper nega tive gradients (the negativity of negative events grows more rapidly with approach to them in space or time than does the positivity of positive events, (c) negativity domi nance (combinations of negative and positive entities yield evaluations that are more negative than the algebraic sum of individual subjective valences would predict), and (d) negative differentiation (negative entities are more varied, yield more complex conceptual representations, and engage a wider response repertoire). We review evi dence for this taxonomy, with emphasis on negativity dominance, including literary, historical, religious, and cultural sources, as well as the psychological literatures on learning, attention, impression formation, contagion, moral judgment, development, and memory. We then consider a variety of theoretical accounts for negativity bias. We suggest that 1 feature of negative events that make them dominant is that negative entities are more contagious than positive entities.

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Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion

https://fidelum.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Warmth-Competence-2007.pdf

Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence

(1990). Positive-Negative Asymmetry in Evaluations: The Distinction Between Affective and Informational Negativity Effects. European Review of Social Psychology: Vol. 1, European Review of Social Psychology, pp. 33-60.

Positive-Negative Asymmetry in Evaluations: The Distinction Between Affective and Informational Negativity Effects

Positivity bias is approached from three viewpoints: (a) It may be the effect of purely cognitive dispositions. (b) As such, it may function as an hypothesis about reality. The related dynamic factor would be a tendency toward cognitive validity which may lead to an orientation toward the negative as a means to test the positivity-hypothesis. (c) Finally, the subject may seek rewarding behavioral interactions with entities within his life space. In this context cognitive positivity bias may reflect a behavioural approach bias which can be related to the dynamics of ‘mere survival’ and ‘self-actualization’.

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The positive-negative asymmetry: On cognitive consistency and positivity bias

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Positive‐negative asymmetry or ‘When the heart needs a reason’

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Evaluative meanings of adjectives in vitro and in context : some theoretical implications and practical consequences of positive-negative asymmetry and behavioral-adaptive concepts of evaluation

In Study 1, 24 participants generated sentences expressing ways of dealing with positively and negatively valued noun stimuli (objects and humans). They were instructed to begin each sentence with One + auxiliary verb. The auxiliary was to be selected from a set including auxiliaries expressing high (must) and low (can) necessity. As predicted on the basis of a minimal nonsocial model of behavioral adaptation, higher necessity was associated with negative stimuli than with positive stimuli. In Study 2, this effect was replicated using trait adjectives as stimuli. Consistent with the model, the effect was produced by stimulus valences belonging to an approach-avoidance related evaluative dimension ‘other-profitability’. However, additional effects, involving an alternative evaluative dimension ‘self-profitability’, were not fully accounted for by the model. They suggested that genuine social factors were involved that, however, were only required to explain some marginal effects. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Guido Peeters

Papers

Positive-Negative Asymmetry in Evaluations: The Distinction Between Affective and Informational Negativity Effects

The positive-negative asymmetry: On cognitive consistency and positivity bias

Positive‐negative asymmetry or ‘When the heart needs a reason’

Evaluative meanings of adjectives in vitro and in context : some theoretical implications and practical consequences of positive-negative asymmetry and behavioral-adaptive concepts of evaluation

From good and bad to can and must: subjective necessity of acts associated with positively and negatively valued stimuli