Dear Content Creators, You’re Sabotaging Your Headlines. Here’s The Fix..

HOW TO USE NEGATIVITY BIAS AND LOSS AVERSION TO WRITE BETTER HEADLINES

Feel compelled to pepper your headlines with sugar, spice, and everything nice?

Sad truth:

Humans are hard-wired to respond to the opposite.

We have stronger reactions to negative events or perceptions than to positive or neutral ones. 

There are two psychological biases at play here: 

Negativity bias and loss aversion. 

Here’s how writers, creators, and marketers can use these biases to craft headlines that literally demand their audience’s attention. 

Let’s use this one as an example. 

It’s especially juicy. 

Eve Arnold always brings some serious heat with her headlines. 

The article is great too. 

Here’s what a bad version of this headline would look like: 

“How To Reach Success By Setting Achievable Goals”. 

Bland, cliché, forgettable. 

Your eyes would scroll right past it. 

But “Sabotaging Your Life Success With Unachievable Goals”? 

It’s brilliant. 

It’s the exact same topic, framed entirely differently. 

Negativity Bias:

This refers to the psychological phenomenon where humans give more psychological weight to negative experiences or information than positive ones.

It affects so many aspects of life. 

Decision-making, emotional processing, memory, social interactions, and more. 

Ever wonder why the news seems to focus on negative events more than positive ones? 

That’s negativity bias at play. 

In this headline, the use of “sabotaging” and the notion of not achieving “life success” are negative concepts. 

People are drawn to potential downsides, especially when it involves their own lives. 

Loss Aversion:

This one is subtly different from negativity bias. 

It’s more specific to decision-making. 

Here’s what it is in a nutshell: 

People prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. 

For example, the pain of losing $100 is twice as intense as the pleasure of winning $100. 

Our headline of the day suggests that readers might be setting themselves up for failure by setting unachievable goals. 

It implies a loss of potential life success. 

The desire to avoid this loss is greater than the desire to gain potential life success. 

Hence: 

“Sabotaging Your Life Success With Unachievable Goals” > “How To Reach Success By Setting Achievable Goals”

A simple framing technique to generate, in theory, twice as much attention. 

A word of caution: 

Use this technique sparingly. 

Yes, it’s effective. 

But I think we can all agree that the world isn’t exactly deficient in negative content nowadays. 

In addition, negative framing should really only be used to generate attention with the headline or hook. 

The body of content itself shouldn’t be framed negatively just for the sake of it. 

But getting the click is 80% of the battle - probably even more so in an increasingly noisy internet. 

So, do what you have to do. 

Then overdeliver with your content.