On effective negativity

CanWest covers a study of the forces which tend to lead to friendships, with some all-too-predictable political ramifications:

(G)ossip often "has nothing to do with the person that you're gossiping about. It has more to do with the person you're gossiping with -- and what you're communicating to them," Bosson says.

In research published in the current issue of the journal Personal Relationships, Bosson and her colleagues first asked two groups of volunteers -- college undergraduates who were taking an introductory psychology class -- to think of their current, closest friend, and then to list as many likes and dislikes they discovered they shared while they were first getting to know each other, and then later in their friendships. Both groups remembered sharing more negative than positive attitudes about other people.

It's not hard to see the political equivalent: that it's often easier to build political connections based more on mutual dislikes than based on a shared positive vision. (And I certainly can't claim to be immune from the tendency to criticize.)

It seems to me to be worth wondering whether that status quo can be changed, either in the personal or in the political spheres, based on a concerted effort to identify positive perceptions rather than negative ones. But as long as negativity seems to be the easier way to win friends and influence people, it's hard to see a change happening anytime soon - no matter how many long-term gains could be made by eliminating the tendency to divide people.