Morality, which refers to characteristics such as trustworthiness and honesty, has a primary role in social perception and judgment. A negativity effect characterizes the morality dimension, whereby negative information is weighed more than positive information in trait attribution and impression formation. This article reviews the literature on the negativity effect in trait attribution and impression formation. We examine the main boundary conditions of the negativity effect by considering relevant moderators such as behavior consistency and evaluative extremity, level of categorization, and measurement type as well as some theoretical and empirical inconsistencies in the literature. We also review recent studies showing that social perceivers hold negative assumptions about people’s morality. We outline future directions for research on the negativity effect that should consider trait extremity, use alternative measures to the perceived frequency of behaviors, introduce more precise definitions of relevant constructs such as diagnosticity, and test different schemata of trait-behavior relations.

中文翻译：

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诚实和一致地行动：道德归因中的负性效应的边界条件

道德是指诸如诚实守信等特征，在社会认知和判断中起着主要作用。消极效应是道德维度的特征，在特质归因和印象形成方面，负面信息比正面信息更重要。本文回顾了有关特质归因和印象形成的负面影响的文献。我们通过考虑相关的主持人，例如行为一致性和评估极端性，分类级别和度量类型，以及文献中的一些理论和经验上的不一致，来检验负效应的主要边界条件。我们还回顾了最近的研究，这些研究表明社会感知者对人们的道德观念持负面看法。