The negativity bias favours the cultural diffusion of negative beliefs, yet many common (mis)beliefs—naturopathy works, there's a heaven—are positive. Why? People might share ‘happy thoughts’—beliefs that might make others happy—to display their kindness. Five experiments conducted among Japanese and English-speaking participants (N = 2412) show that: (i) people higher on communion are more likely to believe and share happier beliefs, by contrast with people higher in competence and dominance; (ii) when they want to appear nice and kind, rather than competent and dominant, people avoid sharing sad beliefs, and instead prefer sharing happy beliefs; (iii) sharing happier beliefs instead of sad beliefs leads to being perceived as nicer and kinder; and (iv) sharing happy beliefs instead of sad beliefs fleads to being perceived as less dominant. Happy beliefs could spread, despite a general negativity bias, because they allow their senders to signal kindness.

中文翻译：

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快乐的想法：交流在接受和分享（错误）信念中的作用

消极偏见有利于消极信念的文化传播，但许多常见（错误）信念——自然疗法有效、天堂存在——都是积极的。为什么？人们可能会分享“快乐的想法”——可能使他人快乐的信念——以表达他们的善意。在日语和英语参与者中进行的五项实验（N  = 2412）表明：（i）与能力和支配力较高的人相比，交流程度较高的人更有可能相信并分享更快乐的信念；(ii) 当人们想要表现得友善和友善，而不是有能力和占主导地位时，他们会避免分享悲伤的信念，而更喜欢分享快乐的信念；(iii) 分享更快乐的信念而不是悲伤的信念会让人觉得更友善；(iv) 分享快乐的信念而不是悲伤的信念会被认为不那么占主导地位。尽管存在普遍的消极偏见，但快乐的信念仍然可以传播，因为它们让发送者表达出善意。