Do you have any source confirming that the average person cares about downvotes?

Asking for a source on this is silly. Go to any reddit thread.

I thought the topic was to show that redditors were talking about Lemmy

The thread linked is a person trying to convince people to come to lemmy.

It’s social disapproval; most people care about social approval–it’s human nature. When googling the question, Ican’t find scientific studies, but general conversation where pretty much everyone involved agrees that downvotes are at least disappointing and at can make people not want to participate.