Word.ws English Dictionary

negativity bias

negativity bias noun: the notion that things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state than neutral or positive things.

Noun

negativity bias (countable and uncountable, plural negativity biases)

  1. The notion that things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state than neutral or positive things.
    • Just as there’s evidence for a positivity effect though, so too is there research suggesting the existence of a negativity bias.2015 January 16, Pete Etchells, “Declinism: is the world actually getting worse?”, in The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    negativity effect, negative bias

Synonyms of negativity bias

  • negativity effect
  • negative bias

Forms of negativity bias

pluralnegativity biases

Questions about negativity bias

What does negativity bias mean?
Negativity bias means the notion that things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state than neutral or positive things.
What part of speech is negativity bias?
Negativity bias is a noun.
What is the plural of negativity bias?
The plural of negativity bias is negativity biases.

Words near negativity bias in the dictionary

  1. negativistic
  2. negativistic personality disorder
  3. negativists
  4. negativities
  5. negativity
  6. negativity bias
  7. negativity biases
  8. negativity thinking
  9. negativization
  10. negativizations
  11. negativize

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: negativity bias (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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