Why are consequences usually associated with something negative?

Solution 1:

It is quite normal to speak of positive consequences, although (see below) use of the term without context or detail can seem threatening. With context, the word itself has been used in many fields with associations of appropriate understanding or planning, resulting in positive outcomes.

The term itself seems not to be inherently loaded: in these uses it carries no stigma. My research today (see below) suggests that ‘consequences’ can imply rewards, reprisals or simply information, fairly equally.

A related possibility is that the term ‘as a consequence’ might often be observed in the wild in cases where someone is trying to avoid or explain a failure, perhaps with shorthand such as ‘dire consequences’ or ‘face the consequences’. You might be thinking of the open-ended declaration, ‘There will be consequences,’ which generally operates as a warning or even a threat. This does not make the base concept negative, any more than ‘face the music’.

There are still plenty of examples of ‘consequences’ referring to analytical concepts or positive outputs of particular actions. In relation to the Question, the important point seems to be the absence of any problematic sense at all of working against a conventionally negative association. The term appears to be essentially neutral.

The site yourdictionary.com offers (at my count) 101 user examples of the word ‘consequence’ in normal use. This seems to be a reasonable corpus, at least for straw poll purposes, with no inbuilt motivation to skew selection. I went through them to determine whether these examples might imply in each case that the consequence[s] should be deplored or feared, welcomed or even celebrated, or simply noted analytically.

Disregarding eight examples of the slightly different usage ‘of [any/no] consequence’ (although in these expressions ‘consequence’ operates consistently as a desirable quality), the remaining 93 break down as follows:

negative association: 32 (34%)

neutral association: 33 (35%)

positive association: 28 (30%)

To be sure, in this list positive usages come out slightly lower than the other two categories (although including ‘of consequence’ would make positives the clear ‘winner’).

If we include the examples of ‘of [any/no] consequence’, the figures change but still make essentially the same point:

negative association: 32 (32%)

neutral association: 33 (33%)

positive association: 36 (35%)

Statistically speaking, either way, the interesting thing seems to be that usage is pretty much evenly-spread. Without embarking on a major textual analysis across a multitude of publications, I can’t think of a more innocently democratic accumulation of instances.

There are many more specialised examples. I think that the important thing here is not to try to position the word positively or negatively, but to note that it appears to carry no particular association independent of context. No-one seems to be scared to use it.

An article on parenting (on boystown.org) claims that ‘Positive consequences (or rewards) are things your child likes and enjoys.’

The professional site internetretailer includes an article about e-commerce entitled simply ‘Happy Consequences’.

Hiper-com.com describes Global Data Synchronisation as a ‘boring subject with exciting consequences’, an instance where consequences are automatically so positive as to make up for initial struggle.

A quick search yields an article in the professional journal Industrial and Commercial Training (Vol 47 #1, 2015), entitled ‘Employee empowerment: factors affecting the consequent success or failure (Part II)’, showing that ‘consequences’ need not imply inherent positive or negative value.

The book Transformative classroom Management (Shindler, 2009) ‘Creating Effective Consequences Within the Social Contract’:

Developing logical and related consequences is crucial to achieving a social contgract that feels democratic and is built on promoting responsibility.

[...]

The most successful consequences are those that are logical and related, built in proactively, reflect the buy-in and ownership of the students, and contribute to long-term growth and behaviour change.

Thefreedictionary points to a range of examples, including...

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables:

He then renewed the conversation, and made great pecuniary offers to the carpenter, in case the latter should give information leading to the discovery of the lost document, and the consequent success of the Eastern claim.

Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad:

But one is calm before St. Mark’s, one is calm in the cellar; for its details are masterfully ugly, no misplaced and impertinent beauties are intruded anywhere; and the consequent result is a grand harmonious whole.