{"id":1103,"slug":"rozin-royzman-2001-negativity-dominance","title":"Rozin & Royzman 2001 (PSPR) — negativity bias / negativity dominance; bad weighs more than the algebraic sum of equivalent goods","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["behavioral-economics","trust-repair"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Rozin and Royzman (2001) document four ways negative information dominates positive:\n\n- **Negative potency** — negative events are subjectively stronger than equivalent positive events\n- **Steeper negative gradients** — negativity grows more rapidly with proximity (in space or time) than positivity does\n- **Negativity dominance** — combinations of positive and negative evaluate more negatively than the algebraic sum\n- **Negative differentiation** — negative entities are perceived in more varied terms\n\nNegativity dominance is the load-bearing finding for Candid.\n\n**Source:** Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). \"Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion.\" *Personality and Social Psychology Review* 5(4): 296–320. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**For Candid:** A GC who has had **three positive interactions with marketing vendors and one bad one** will, in retrieval, weight the bad one *above the algebraic sum of the three positives*. This is not irrational — it is the documented baseline pattern of human cognition, with a plausible evolutionary basis (false negatives carry asymmetric fitness costs).\n\nImplication: case study volume does not linearly counteract one prior bad experience. The integrity-violation channel ([[kim-ferrin-cooper-dirks-2004-competence-vs-integrity-trust-repair]]) and structural-commitment signals ([[rule-diagnose-prior-vendor-failure-as-competence-or-integrity]]) do the load-bearing work, not aggregated positive signals.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"research-brief-risk-aversion-post-failure-may-2026","title":"Research brief: risk aversion, loss aversion, and post-failure decision patterns in GC and trades-business decision-makers (May 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"kim-ferrin-cooper-dirks-2004-competence-vs-integrity-trust-repair","title":"Kim, Ferrin, Cooper, Dirks 2004 (JAP) — competence violations repair via apology; integrity violations repair via denial; opposite mechanisms","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"tversky-kahneman-1973-availability-recency-vs-once-burned","title":"Tversky & Kahneman 1973 (Cognitive Psychology) — availability heuristic; why \"once burned\" is NOT just recency bias","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"shefrin-statman-1985-disposition-effect-narrow-framing","title":"Shefrin & Statman 1985 (JoF) — disposition effect; narrow-framing / mental accounting of each vendor as separate account","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-diagnose-prior-vendor-failure-as-competence-or-integrity","title":"R5 — Diagnose previous-vendor failures as competence or integrity; route the repair strategy accordingly (apology vs structural commitments)","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:31.012Z","updated_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:31.012Z"}