In this blogpost we wish to highlight the following article as a candidate for a set of Robustness Reports:
Robertson, C. E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K., Pärnamets, P., Van Bavel, J. J., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023). Negativity drives online news consumption. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(5), 812–822. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4
The abstract:
“Online media is important for society in informing and shaping opinions, hence raising the question of what drives online news consumption. Here we analyse the causal effect of negative and emotional words on news consumption using a large online dataset of viral news stories. Specifically, we conducted our analyses using a series of randomized controlled trials (N = 22,743). Our dataset comprises ~105,000 different variations of news stories from Upworthy.com that generated ∼5.7 million clicks across more than 370 million overall impressions. Although positive words were slightly more prevalent than negative words, we found that negative words in news headlines increased consumption rates (and positive words decreased consumption rates). For a headline of average length, each additional negative word increased the click-through rate by 2.3%. Our results contribute to a better understanding of why users engage with online media.”
We highlight this article as a promising target for a set of Robustness Reports for two main reasons. First, the article has had considerable impact (e.g., an Altmetric score of 2510 and almost 200 citations). Second, one re-analysis has already been conducted (!) showing that while the bias for negative words persists, positive words do not decrease click rate when examining semantic, instead of lexical, positivity (Reiss & Roggenkamp, 2025; for a response see Robertson et al., 2025). One more Robustness Report and the set would be publishable in the Journal of Robustness Reports. The data are publicly available at https://osf.io/uscpf/files.
More information on the Journal of Robustness Reports is available on this site and on BayesianSpectacles.
Author
Jari Holla and EJ Wagenmakers
References
Reiss, M.V. & Roggenkamp, H. (2025). A Comment on “Negativity Drives Online News Consumption”. I4R Discussion Paper Series 199, The Institute for Replication (I4R). https://hdl.handle.net/10419/311304
Robertson, C. E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K., Pärnamets, P., Van Bavel, J. J., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023). Negativity drives online news consumption. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(5), 812–822. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4
Robertson, C. E., Pröllochs, N., Pärnamets, P., Van Bavel, J. J., & Feuerriegel, S. (2025) : Response to Replication Report of “Negativity Drives Online News Consumption”, I4R Discussion Paper Series, No. 200, Institute for Replication (I4R), s.l. https://hdl.handle.net/10419/311305.