Bad Politicians

Menacing figures fill the airwaves this election season as campaigns turn opponents into caricatures. These black-and-white portrayals of smarmy villains, accompanied by sinister music, warn voters that catastrophe awaits if the “wrong” candidate wins.

Negative portrayals of political opponents are nothing new. Even the venerable Thomas Jefferson secretly paid scandalmonger James Callender to write blistering criticisms of President John Adams during the 1800 campaign. Jefferson’s alliance with Callender eventually backfired when the disgruntled journalist publicized Jefferson’s sexual liaisons with his slave, Sally Hemings. 

The negative television ad came of age in 1964 with “Daisy Girl.” Lyndon Johnson’s campaign produced a 60-second spot that began with a preschool girl counting petals as she plucks them from a daisy. Soon a harsh military voice drowns her out with a countdown. At zero, the screen fills with an atomic explosion, and LBJ’s voice warns: “These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.” Although his name was never mentioned, the implication—fair or not—was that Republican Barry Goldwater was a dangerous warmonger.

This ad ran only once, but the controversy it stirred propelled the spot into a national story that was explored by all the media outlets. In today’s parlance, it went viral, and media consultants saw the future. So, what’s so good about the bad?

Political consultants understood instinctively what psychologists would later prove empirically. Social psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues studied this negativity effect in “Bad is Stronger Than Good,” one of the most cited articles in the psychological literature. They showed that disagreeable events, comments, and outcomes universally overwhelm their positive counterparts when dosed in equal measures. That’s bad news for our everyday lives.

Studies show that losing money, being abandoned by friends, and receiving criticism affect people more deeply than financial gains, new friendships, or praise. Reducing negative interactions in a marriage improves satisfaction far more than increasing positive ones. 

A reputation that takes years to establish can be ruined by a single misstep. We are much more motivated to avoid negative views of ourselves than to achieve positive ones. Even kids perform better when marbles are first given to them with the threat of being taken back for improper answers, rather than when they begin with an empty jar and collect marbles for correct answers.

Our language attests to the negative bias. The researchers contend that of the 558 emotional words in the English language, 62 percent are bad. “Trauma” has no opposite in our vocabulary, and no single positive event in our lives produces the long-term effects of a lone cataclysmic affront.

Even brief exposures to adverse events have greater emotional impact than engagement with positive ones. We work harder to avoid bad moods than to produce or prolong good ones. Upsetting social interactions induce much more deflation of mood than positive interactions elevate emotions.

Why is bad so bad? Baumeister cites the evolutionary advantage that accompanies recognizing danger more quickly than accumulating “attaboys.” This conditioning amplifies our attention to threats, and newsrooms willingly oblige with stories of frightful mayhem and unnerving peril. For instance, although violent crime in the United States is less than half what it was in the early 1990s, constant newsfeeds make people feel less safe than they were 35 years ago.

So, what do we do with all of this “bad” knowledge? If you’re a politician, you find something your opponent wrote after a few beers when he was 18 years old and paint him as a scoundrel. If you’re a regular person, you recognize your genetic sensitivity and get the facts before throwing someone under the bus. And if you’re a good person, you give others the benefit of the doubt.

To help others, Baumeister recommends the “rule of four.” It takes four positive remarks to offset a single negative one. In today’s culture of perpetual outrage, that’s a demanding standard—but a useful one. It’s not so hard to offer four kind words that are badly needed. It might just do some good.