Concept · Cognitive Bias: Attention and perception biases
Negativity bias
Origin: Rozin & Royzman, 2001
Biological Parallel
A deer remembers the location of a predator encounter for months but forgets profitable foraging patches within days. Negativity bias: threats dominate memory more than opportunities. The evolutionary logic: missing a food source costs a meal; missing a predator costs your life. Error asymmetry drives attentional weighting—bad is stronger than good because natural selection punishes underestimating threats more than underestimating rewards. Survival optimized for pessimism.