available to them, they are subsequently more confident. An oft-cited paradox, a dishonest person can sometimes act honestly while still being considered to be predominantly dishonest; on the other hand, an honest person who sometimes does dishonest things will likely be reclassified as a dishonest person. It is expected that a dishonest person will occasionally be honest, but this honesty will not counteract the prior demonstrations of dishonesty. Honesty is considered more easily tarnished by acts of dishonesty. Honesty itself would then be not diagnostic of an honest nature, only the absence of dishonesty. The presumption that negative information has greater diagnostic accuracy is also evident in voting patterns. Voting behaviors have been shown to be more affected or motivated by negative information than positive: people tend to be more motivated to vote against a candidate because of negative information than they are to vote for a candidate because of positive information. As noted by researcher Jill Klein, "character weaknesses were more important than strengths in determining...the ultimate vote". This diagnostic preference for negative traits over positive traits is thought to be a consequence of behavioral expectations: there is a general expectation that, owing to social requirements and regulations, people will generally behave positively and exhibit positive traits. Contrastingly, negative behaviors/traits are more unexpected and, thus, more salient when they are exhibited. The relatively greater salience of negative events or information means they ultimately play a greater role in the judgment process. Attribution of Intentions Studies reported in a paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by Carey Morewedge (2009) found that people exhibit a negativity bias in attribution of external agency, such that they are more likely to attribute negative outcomes to the intentions of another person than similar neutral and positive outcomes. In laboratory experiments, Morewedge found that participants were more likely to believe that a partner had influenced the outcome of a gamble in when the participants lost money than won money, even when the probability of winning and losing money was held even. This bias is not limited to adults. Children also appear to be more likely to attribute negative events to intentional causes than similarly positive events. Cognition As addressed by negative differentiation, negative information seems to require greater information processing resources and activity than does positive information; people tend to think and reason more about negative events than positive events. Neurological differences also