Millions of people now get their news online. But with so much online content to consume and so little time to consume it, editors at news outlets know that writing “catchy” headlines is more important than ever. So, what makes a headline catchy? A new study published in Nature Human Behaviour found that negative emotion words in headlines made it more likely that consumers would click through and read the story. In contrast, positive emotion words decreased click rates.

The idea that people are more attentive to negative things is not a new one. Journalists have always had this intuition (captured in phrases like “if it bleeds, it leads”), and psychology studies have backed it up. People dislike losses more than they like gains, and they overweigh negative information in many contexts. Even infants pay more attention to negative stimuli. This negativity bias makes some sense from an evolutionary perspective: If you miss out on an opportunity to forage for some delicious berries, you will be sad…but if you accidentally eat a poison mushroom, you will be dead.

Given this negativity bias, do people tend to engage more with negative news content online? Previous research suggests that the answer is yes. For example, people share more content if it makes them angry. But a lot of this research has been done either in a controlled lab setting, or it has been correlational, so we can’t know for sure if negativity actually causes people to consume news more.

That’s why the dataset analyzed by Robertson and colleagues is so special. First of all, it is data on the number of clicks (“click-through rate” is the technical term) in response to more than 105,000 headlines on the news site Upworthy. Therefore, these are real decisions being made by real people. Moreover, Upworthy often tested out (through random assignment) different headlines for the same exact story, so they essentially ran experiments on their users. Therefore, even when the content of the news story was exactly the same, when editors put negative words like “hate” and “worst” into the headline, more people clicked on it, and when they included positive words like “love,” and “best,” fewer people clicked through.

Not only does this paper tell us more about the factors that influence online news consumption, but it also showcases the nuanced ways in which emotion influences decision-making. The researchers found that words about sadness increased click-through rates, but words about fear actually decreased them (and anger words had no significant effect). Now, we don’t know if people were actually feeling those emotions when they read the headlines, so we will need more studies to explore these effects further. However, given that different discrete emotions might be associated with different appraisals of one’s current situation, it makes sense that not all negative emotions would have the same downstream effects on behavior. For example, previous research has shown that people are more optimistic and risk-seeking when they are angry, but they are more pessimistic and risk-averse（风险厌恶）when they are afraid.

In the future, it will be interesting to see how generalizable these findings are. For instance, this study did not look at individual differences in news consumption, and it is possible that the results would depend on the reader’s personality or age (e.g., older adults are less susceptible to negativity bias). But I’m excited about the trend of psychologists digging into real-world decision-making data to gain insights into the ways that emotion impacts decision-making.

1.Which of the following is a main finding of the study discussed in the article?

A Negative emotion words in headlines increase click-through rates, while positive emotion words decrease them.

B Infants pay more attention to negative stimuli than positive stimuli.

C People tend to share more news content if it makes them angry.

D Different discrete emotions have the same downstream effects on behavior.

解析：选A。A 该研究的主要发现是：标题中的负面情绪词使消费者更有可能点击并阅读新闻，而正面情绪词则降低了点击率。故选A。

2.According to the article, what is the "negativity bias"?

A The idea that people tend to engage more with negative news content online.

B The idea that people dislike losses more than they like gains.

C The idea that journalists prefer negative news stories.

D The idea that infants pay more attention to negative stimuli.

解析：选B。B 本文将“消极偏见”描述为人们不喜欢损失而喜欢收获，并且在许多情况下过度夸大负面信息。故选B。

3.Why is the dataset analyzed by Robertson and colleagues considered special?

A It is data on the number of clicks in response to over 105,000 headlines on the news site Upworthy.

B It is data on the number of shares of news content that makes people angry.

C It is data on the number of positive and negative words used in headlines.

D It is data on the number of people who read news stories online.

解析：选A。A Robertson及其同事分析的数据集很特别，因为它是关于新闻网站Upworthy上105000多个头条新闻的点击量的数据，因此代表了真人做出的真实决策。故选A。

4.What did the researchers find regarding the effect of words about fear in headlines on click-through rates?

A Words about fear increased click-through rates.

B Words about fear decreased click-through rates.

C Words about fear had no significant effect on click-through rates.

D The article does not provide information on the effect of words about fear on click-through rates.

解析：选B。B 研究人员发现，关于恐惧的词语实际上降低了点击率。故选B。

5.What is the author of the article excited about?

A The idea that people tend to engage more with negative news content online.

B The finding that different discrete emotions have the same downstream effects on behavior.

C The trend of psychologists digging into real-world decision-making data to gain insights into the ways that emotion impacts decision-making.

D The fact that the study discussed in the article did not look at individual differences in news consumption.

解析：选C。C 这篇文章的作者对心理学家挖掘现实世界决策数据以深入了解情绪影响决策的方式的趋势感到兴奋。故选C。