The sky is falling: evidence of a negativity bias in the social transmission of information

Given the evidence that people preferentially process negative information over positive information, it was hypothesised that there may be a commensurate negativity bias in the social transmission of information. The studies presented in this thesis support this hypothesis by providing evidence of such a negative social transmission bias. This bias is characterised by the selective transmission of negative, over positive information and the increased probability of transmitting resolutions of ambiguous information that convey its negative rather than its positive candidate meaning. There was no evidence that elevated trait or state anxiety modulates this negativity bias.