Washington, March 05: People in a bad mood perform tasks better than those in a good state of mind, a new study has claimed, contradicting the common belief that people err more when they are unhappy.
The University of New South Wales research has found that melancholy might help people hit peak performance.
For their research, a team of scientists led by Prof Joseph Forgas reviewed several of studies in which researchers induced either a good or bad mood in volunteers.
They found that grumpy people paid closer attention to details and showed less gullibility to their task, thus becoming less prone to errors of judgement, the Scientific American reported.
They “formed higher-quality and persuasive arguments than their happy counterparts”, the researchers claimed.
“One study even supports the notion that those who show signs of either fear, anger, disgust or sadness — the four basic negative emotions — achieve stronger eyewitness recall while virtually eliminating the effect of misinformation,” the report said.
Earlier studies have suggested that positive mood enhances divergent thinking and those who not in better moods commit more errors.
—–Agencies