ABSTRACT

Our human tendency to remember more and pay more attention to negative events (rather than positive ones) may be at the core of our ‘enjoyment’ of the arts. Indeed, if we engage in sad and tragic stories, it may well be because we have a built-in propensity to be affected by situations eliciting negative emotions (i.e. a psychological phenomenon called the ‘Negativity Bias’). A good example of this seemingly paradoxical tendency is Fernando de Rojas’s Celestina (1499). Although the premise of the story is that of an amour courtois between two young lovers, Calisto and Melibea, the story ends with a suicide and, in between, there are also one murder, one accident leading to death and two executions. And yet, it was a bestseller at the time. This attraction to stories that elicit negative affects is also hypothesized to be the result of evolutionary pressures.

摘要

我们人类倾向于记住更多并更多地关注负面事件（而不是正面事件），这可能是我们“享受”艺术的核心。事实上，如果我们参与悲伤和悲剧的故事，很可能是因为我们有一种内在的倾向，容易受到引发负面情绪的情况的影响（即一种称为“消极偏见”的心理现象）。费尔南多·德·罗哈斯（Fernando de Rojas）的《塞莱斯蒂娜》（ Celestina，1499）就是这种看似矛盾的倾向的一个很好的例子。虽然故事的前提是一个恋人故事发生在两个年轻恋人卡利斯托和梅利贝亚之间，故事以自杀结束，其间还发生了一起谋杀案、一起导致死亡的事故和两次处决。然而，它在当时却是畅销书。这种对引起负面影响的故事的吸引力也被认为是进化压力的结果。