Negativity can be created with two methods: concept valence and negation. Negated statements are more likely to be judged as true. 

-Concept valence: "more than vs. less than"

-Negation: "this vs not this" 

Sources of negativity in a statement

There are more ways for something to be false than to be true. Therefore, negatively phrased statements have more possible ways to be correct. This makes negatively phrased statements seem more likely to be true. 

Negative Statements Create a Larger Realm of Possible States

Bad information is more salient than good information, negative instances attract more attention, negative information is processed more thoroughly, and there are more possible false statements. 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Humans are more likely to think that a negatively phrased statement is true than a positively phrased one when the content is the same. 

Negativity Bias and Truth Judgements

Jaffé, M. E., & Greifeneder, R. (2020). Can that be true or is it fake news? New perspec- tives on the negativity bias in judgments of truth. In R. Greifeneder, M. Jaffé, E. J. Newman, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), The psychology of fake news: Accepting, sharing, and cor- recting misinformation (pp. 115–130). London: Routledge. 

Can that be true or is it fake news? New perspectives on the negativity bias in judgments of truth

Through a series of techniques/approaches, individuals are able to judge whether a statement is true or false. This includes the C&C Approach and steps to gauging plausibility. 

How do individuals judge truth?

Why negatively phrased statements seem more likely to be true

Cooperative principle: Automatic initial belief that people are telling the truth when talking to you.

The maxim of quality: People should not share information they believe to be false and should not share something that lacks adequate evidence.

Why People are Predisposed to Expect the Truth

- Because of the cooperative principle and maxim of quality, people expect to be told the truth. When presented with misinformation, they are initially inclined to believe it is the truth. 

- Misinformation spreaders can incorporate negative statements to take advantage of negativity biases. This could be through either method of creating negativity (concept valence or negation). 

- Using the concept of psychological distance, those spreading misinformation could frame their arguments to feel more psychologically close to the readers, making the impact of negativity biases more pronounced. 

How Negativity Biases Contribute to the Spread of Misinformation

- Investigate how framing different contexts of information may impact an individual’s truth judgement.
- Investigate whether relevance of a statement to an individual may affect an individual’s judgement of truth
- Investigate offline versus online context judgements 


Future Directions of Negativity Bias and Truth Judgements

- psychological distance
- expectation violations
- sources of negativity

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