I just had an interesting experience as I scrolled through the evaluations that have been assigned to my articles at an ezine site.

I blurred my way through the fives and fours, which are the most positive, and slowed down and paid more attention to the ones through threes, the more negative ones.

Why am I more interested in the sour than the sweet?

And am I unique in this tendency, or do most of us respond in pretty much the same way?

Ive found that I give inordinate importance to negative speech and seminar evaluations, as well, despite the fact that they are negligible in number.

Negative ratings are especially mysterious if there are no comments attached, as is the case with 99% of the ezine critiques. So, if I received a 1 out of 5, did the person get it backwards, thinking 1 is the best and 5 is the worst?

Theres no way of knowing for sure, without receiving comments, as well.

So, the actual feedback value of this sting is nonexistent, yet its still to some extent, bothersome.

But lets put this into perspective. As of this writing, approximately 45,000 folks have read my articles. A mere seventeen have rated them, and of these, only one has commented, positively at that.

About three or four are negative ratings, and the rest are positive. So, four out of 45,000 have seemingly expressed displeasure.

Thats statistically insignificant.

Now I need to convince myself that its emotionally insignificant, as well.