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The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgamesEARTHDATE: November 8, 2009
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REAL LIFE NEWS: GRUMPY IS GOODby HazedAre you in a bad mood? Feeling cranky? Snapping at everyone around you? Don't worry about it, it turns out that being grumpy makes you think more clearly. An Australian psychology expert called Professor Joe Forgas has been studying emotions, and he has found that miserable people are better than happy people at making decisions. They are also less gullible. His research at the University of South Wales showed that a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain "promotes information processing strategies". He asked his volunteers to watch different films and dwell on either positive or negative events in their lives - so they were put into either a good mood or a bad mood. Then he set them a series of tasks, which included judging the truth of urban myths and providing eyewitness accounts of events. The bad mood bods outperformed the jolly ones - they made fewer mistakes, and they were better communicators. The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments. It's not all bad news for happy people, though. "Positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation and reliance on mental shortcuts," the Prof said, so it seems you should gear your mood towards the type of task you intend to undertake. This isn't the first time this particular scientist has shown sharp contrasts in the way our abilities are affected - previously he showed that the weather has a similar impact, with wet and dreary days sharpening the memory, and bright sunny spells making people forgetful. Well, that ought to mean I have a phenomenal memory given that wet and dreary more or less describes the British weather all year round! |
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