Hahahaha. You're so right about human behaviour and the psychology of upvotes vs downvotes. There was an experiment where two people where given an amount of money (I'm not sure about the exact figures).
Person A: Given $5
Person B: Given $10, and then asked to give back $5 to end up with $5

The attitude of each person was completely different. Person A was so glad to have got a 'free' $5, while person B was angry about losing $5 :)