When blemishing leads to blossoming: the positive effect of negative information
Danit Ein-Gar, Baba Shiv and Zakary Tormala report four studies showing that a small negative detail can increase a product's appeal when people process information with little effort and the negative follows the positives. In one study of 141 people, a mild negative raised purchase intentions for low-effort readers from 3.29 to 4.26 and lowered them for high-effort readers from 4.24 to 3.36.
Danit Ein-Gar, Baba Shiv and Zakary Tormala report four studies showing that a small negative detail can increase a product's appeal when people process information with little effort and the negative follows the positives. In one study of 141 people, a mild negative raised purchase intentions for low-effort readers from 3.29 to 4.26 and lowered them for high-effort readers from 4.24 to 3.36.
Written from the full text read 2026-10-11.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
doi:10.1086/660807. Four studies; study 1, 141 participants; study 2, a field study with chocolate.