Can Sadness Be Good for You?

Abstract

The subtle relationship between feeling and thinking, affect and cognition has fascinated philosophers and writers since time immemorial, yet, empirical research on this topic was relatively neglected by psychologists until recently. There have been many claims emphasising the beneficial cognitive and behavioural consequences of positive affect. Many recent works suggest that negative affect may also facilitate optimal performance in many situations, consistent with evolutionary theories suggesting the adaptive signalling function of various affective states. This paper reviews traditional and current psychological theories linking affect to social thinking and behaviour. A variety of empirical studies from our laboratory will also be presented, demonstrating that in many situations, negative affect promotes optimal performance in cognitive and social tasks, including tasks such as memory, social judgements, motivation, and strategic interpersonal behaviours. These results will be interpreted in terms of a dual‐process theory that predicts that negative affect promotes a more accommodative, vigilant, and externally focused thinking strategy. The relevance of these findings for recent affect–cognition theories will be discussed, and the practical implications of negative affect promoting improved social thinking and performance in a number of applied fields will be considered.

Depression and Sequential Decision-Making Revisited

“…However, they did not use specifically negative feedback (but rather, for example, a simple feedback if the decision made was “correct” or “wrong”). On a more general level, the main effect of punishment sensitivity is consistent with the hypothesis that individual’s decisions will tend to change when they are given negative feedback (e.g., Wofford and Goodwin, 1990) and that negative feedback results in a bad mood, which in turn may promote a more accommodative, attentive, and externally focused thinking strategy (Forgas, 2017). Nevertheless, we believe that it is an interesting task for future research to further investigate the effect of feedback (be it negative, positive or rather neutral) on the performance in a sequential decision-making task such as the SP.…”

Weather-Induced Moods and Stock-Return Autocorrelation

“…Therefore, only bad moods should contribute to positive return autocorrelation. On the other hand, Bohner et al (1992) reported that positive moods reduced subjects' motivation to systematically process message content and context cues; Forgas et al (2009) reported that subjects with negative moods showed better memory and discriminatory ability than subjects with good moods; and Forgas (2017) reported that negative moods promoted optimal performance in cognitive and social tasks. These studies suggest that good moods contribute positively to return autocorrelation, and bad moods contribute less or nothing.…”

“…Moods cause investors' limited attention, poor memory, and low capacity to process information (e.g. Bohner, Crow, Erb, & Schwarz, 1992;Isen, 2001;Forgas, Goldenberg, & Unkelbach, 2009;Forgas, 2017). Inattentive investors delay the price adjustment process, therefore leading to positive autocorrelation of asset returns (Dehaan, Madsen, & Piotroski, 2017).…”

Historia, investigación y discurso de la Psicología Positiva: Un abordaje crítico

“…Sirvan como justificación, los siguientes ejemplos: a) una cierta dosis de pesimismo defensivo, incluso puede ser positivo y bueno para el proceso de vivir (Gruber & Moskowitz, 2014;Kashdan & Biswas-Diener, 2014;Lomas, 2016;Norem, 2001;Parrott, 2014); b) es posible tener demasiada felicidad, experimentar la felicidad en el momento equivocado, buscar la felicidad en los caminos equivocados, y experimentar tipos incorrectos de felicidad (Gruber, Mauss & Tamir, 2011); c) el sistema afectivo positivo se puede llegar a asociar positivamente con algunas formas de psicopatología (por ejemplo, trastorno bipolar, uso de sustancias; Gruber et al, 2017); d) la promoción del afecto negativo puede ser útil para las personas. Pues, la tristeza o el humor negativo, que no es depresión, puede mejorar las relaciones interpersonales, incrementar la motivación para superar la situación, mejorar la precisión en los juicios de formación de impresiones y un estilo de pensamiento más detallado y atento y, además, mejora la memoria y el recuerdo de los detalles (Forgas, 2013(Forgas, , 2017; e) un énfasis excesivo en la necesidad de buscar emociones positivas, y evitar las negativas, puede acarrear implicaciones negativas, a través de rumiar sentimientos y experiencias negativas, para el bienestar psicológico de las personas (McGuirk, Kuppens, Kingston & Bastian, 2017); y, por último, f) en pacientes con diversos cánceres de cuello y cabeza, no existían diferencias significativas en años de supervivencia entre los que se sentían abatidos y vencidos por la enfermedad, en comparación con lo que experimentaban pensamientos más positivos (Coyne et al, 2007).…”