Bad news first – Neuroticism, negative expectations and preference for negative information

Some people appear to specifically search for bad news, or to prefer negatively valencedinformation more generally. While preferred intake of negative information may serve toconfirm one’s existing negative expectations it may also contribute to negative affect andneuroticism. Conversely, other people may prefer information that allows learning rather thanconfirming existing expectations and individual differences in such preferences may be linkedto trait openness/intellect. To assess associations between information preferences, negativeexpectations, neuroticism, and openness/intellect, two studies (N=300 and N=161) wereconducted. Participants completed a negative expectation questionnaire and rated whetherthey would like to read the corresponding articles of 48 presented news-headlines. Headlineswere construed to suggest that the valence of the corresponding article would either benegative, positive or neutral and were presented in negative-neutral or positive-neutral pairs.Ratings were provided on 24 bipolar (Study 1) or 48 unipolar (Study 2) items. In line withassumptions, rating-intercorrelations support the existence of general tendencies to prefernegative vs. neutral (and positive vs. neutral) news across different topics. Across studies, thetendency to prefer negative vs. neutral news was correlated with both generalized negativeexpectations and neuroticism. Moreover, negative expectations mediated the relationshipbetween neuroticism and preferring negative news, suggesting that negative informationpreferences may serve to confirm negative expectations in high neuroticism. In contrast,openness/intellect, was linked to higher preferences for any news (Study 2) but particularlyheadlines that indicated high information gain. These findings provide insights intoinformation preferences and mechanisms for stabilizing expectations in personality.