Negative Thinking Boosts Memory !

In a recent Interesting Study which is published in the Australian Science Journal has revealed that Bad moods can actually be good for a person. In this study finding that being sad makes people less gullible ,improves their ability to judge others and also boost memory .This study which was authorized by Psychology Professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New south wales , showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of , and paid more attention to their surroundings than happier people , who are more likely to believe anything they were told. ‘’Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative mood trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world.’’For the study Forgas and his team conducted several experiments that started with inducing happy or sad moods in their subjects through watching films and recalling positive or negative events..In one of the experiments , happy and sad participants were asked to judge the truth of urban myths and rumours and found that people in a negative mood were less likely to believe these statements .People in a bad mood were also less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices , and they were less likely to make mistakes when asked to recall an event that they witnessed .The study also found that sad people were better at starting their case through written arguments, Forgas said ‘’ this showed that mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style .’’Positive mood is not universally desirable :people in negative mood are less prone to judgment errors, are more resistible to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high quality , effective persuasive messages .’’Forgas also wrote that their study suggests that sadness promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations’’