Negativity bias
Etymology
A well-established finding in psychology, crystallized in Roy Baumeister and colleagues’ 2001 review "Bad Is Stronger Than Good" and Paul Rozin and Edward Royzman’s 2001 paper on negativity bias. The term is descriptive rather than eponymous, and the likely evolutionary logic is blunt: missing a good opportunity usually costs less than missing a deadly threat, so vigilance to the bad paid off.
noun · /neg-uh-TIV-ih-tee BY-us/
The tendency for bad events, emotions, and information to affect us more strongly and stick with us longer than equally intense good ones.
What it names
It explains why one harsh comment outweighs ten compliments, and why threats and outrage travel faster than good news through any feed.
Example
The product had a 4.6 average, but negativity bias meant the two furious reviews were the only ones anyone quoted.
Related idea
Loss aversion is a narrower economic cousin — losses hurting more than equivalent gains; negativity bias is the wider tilt across attention, memory, and emotion.