There’s a new burger joint in the building where I work called thatsaburger. It opened today, and I was one of the first customers. It sits in space where many other restaurants have failed. Perhaps the new owners know something the many previous owners didn’t.

My order (a double burger and fries) got lost in the shuffle, and I stood there for 15 minutes as other patrons who ordered later than me received their food. One of the cashiers eventually noticed me getting impatient and asked if I was still waiting on food. Another waiter followed up, taking my receipt and discussing it in a huddle of mostly-Mexican cooks wearing plain white t-shirts. A few minutes later, I finally saw a white bag passed from one of the cooks to the waiter, and then I saw the waiter scoop fries off a plate with his hands and place them into a plastic container, then into the bag. I’m not squeamish, so I took my bag and left rather than bothering to register a complaint, which might have delayed my lunch longer.

As the food goes, the fries were undercooked and the burger was okay, maybe even slightly above average.

Had the service been spectacular or even average, I probably wouldn’t have felt compelled to mention it on my blog. It stuck in my mind because the service was bad. It’s not just cynics like me who prefer to focus on and discuss the negative aspects of an experience. Research performed by a company named TARP (now e-Satisfy) cited in the book I’m reading (The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen) confirms that negative ideas spread faster than positive ideas because we’re wired that way.

A mail survey was sent to about 1,700 Coca Cola customers who had either complained or who had made an inquiry to the company in previous months. TARP’s findings in the Coca Cola study and in consumer studies that followed confirmed the general belief that people talk about a bad experience with more of their acquaintances — although the actual number of people they talked to was different. In the Coca Cola study, for example, consumers who were satisfied with the way Coca Cola handled their complaint told 4 to 5 people about it, while those that felt their complaint was not satisfactorily resolved told 9 to 10 people. A study for General Motors found that the numbers for cars were 8 and 16. “Over the next fifteen hundred studies, anytime we did customer surveys, we would ask about word of mouth,” [TARP President John] Goodman said. “We do find that data varies rather dramatically. In certain industries we find that one person hears about a good experience and six hear about a bad experience. So we’ve found over the past few years that the two-to-one ration that everyone always talks about isn’t necessarily correct.”

Even in a best case scenario, someone is twice as likely to talk about a negative experience as a positive one. Goodman goes on to say that the more emotionally involved someone is with something, the more likely they are to share a negative opinion with someone else when they are dissatisfied.

Since politicians are not only products in an idea market, but also products with whom consumers (voters) are very emotionally involved, negative discussion about them is likely to spread by word-of-mouth at a rate greater than twice as quickly as positive discussion.

In other words, politicians spread poison because we’re wired to eat it up and spread it, like cockroaches who walk through a trap and carry death to their nests.

So, expect bigotry, fear-mongering and class warfare for the foreseeable future. Scaring people shitless and getting them angry at mythical bogeymen works better than getting them excited about a good idea. As Bill Shipp wrote recently (found on Cracker Squire), the long-shot politicians who have won elections in Georgia the past few decades did so by getting people scared of and angry at bogeymen.

In their successful bids for high office, [Jimmy Carter, Sam Nunn and Sonny Perdue] ran as long-shot underdogs against established public figures with much larger war chests. This trio of unlikely sound-alikes appealed to the ultraconservative instincts of white male voters. All three ran against the mythic Atlanta power structure.

[...]

Carter’s 1970 bid for governor became the prototype for winning statewide office.

The former state senator abandoned any pretense of restraint. He ran hard to the political right, even sending his aides to distribute handbills at KKK rallies.

At every opportunity, Carter jumped on the “liberal” Atlanta Constitution and painted his opponent, former Gov. Carl Sanders, as a tool of the “liberal” Atlanta power structure.

If Democrats want to win elections, they should find themselves a bogeyman or three.