>People who receive downvotes can sometimes believe that anyone who is downvoting is doing so because they must support the opposite of what the poster believes. This, in my experience on HN, isn't necessarily (or even often) the case.

Bingo. The majority of the time when I downvote anyone, it's because they are trying to seem more intelligent by overusing linked academic articles or by overusing vocabulary that doesn't really fit. Anytime I see someone using something as an excuse to "talk" when they really have nothing to say, they get downvoted. Yes I realize that's subjective and not perhaps what the downvote is for, but that's also my choice.

Contrarion types on the other hand (and I don't mean the intelligent rhetorical folks who provoke good discussion) get a downvote immediately. I have no time for anyone who wants to disagree just to disagree so that they can make themselves look more philosophical or "deep".

I know this makes me an asshole, but at least I'm not treating the downvote as an "I disagree button"