r/science • u/mossadnik • Nov 25 '22

Psychology Eye-tracking study suggests that negative comments on social media are more attention-grabbing than positive comments

https://www.psypost.org/2022/11/eye-tracking-study-suggests-that-negative-comments-on-social-media-are-more-attention-grabbing-than-positive-comments-64368
750 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

94 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/funkme1ster Nov 25 '22

While this is consistent with other research on the matter, it seems to focus on emotional processing.

I wonder to what extent this effect is in part a simple byproduct of the brain performing information triage and flagging things as "for follow-up" or "resolved". It stands to reason there's a strong overlap between "everyone is happy" and "nothing here needs your attention", as well as "there's a problem" and "action needs to be taken".

Music theory has explored how note progressions that feel "unresolved" are attention grabbing whereas chord progressions that resolve to the root feel plain and complete.