The Baalei Mussar find a benefit in every middah and every situation. He are the benefits of being in a bad mood!
Tim Herrera
We all know that age-old wisdom: Trust your gut. But what if your gut is too happy to be trusted?
Yes, it sounds silly. But there’s a surprisingly large body of research that extols the cognitive and social benefits of being in a bad mood.
A 2006 study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology tested subjects on their ability to detect a lie. Subjects who were put in a negative mood by watching a short film about dying of cancer were far more likely to detect lies than subjects who were put in a good mood by watching a clip from a comedy show.
The conclusion? Being in a bad mood “increased judges’ skepticism toward the targets and improved their accuracy in detecting deceptive communications, while judges in a positive mood were more trusting and gullible.”
In other words — and, really, this is kind of a bummer — you’re a better human lie detector when you’re not happy.
It doesn’t end there. Feeling happy can decrease, and feeling bad can increase, our accuracy as eyewitnesses, our ability to communicate strategically (like when we’re trying to persuade), and our likelihood to avoid errors in judgment, according to pair of studies, one of which found that happiness can even blind us to the fact that we have these emotion-induced impairments.
The lesson here, friends, is this: The way to improve your life is always feeling bad.
Kidding! But what this research does mean is that you should be aware of your emotions and feelings — and how they’re influencing you — when making big decisions or having important conversations. Keep in mind that you could be more susceptible to deception if you’re feeling happy.
