American Psychological Association
“People often believe that a state of happiness is ideal, and many view the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental life goal,” says study lead author Heather Lench, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at A&M University in Texas. and the idea that it is ideal for personal well-being is prominent in extraspatial and psychological accounts of emotions; “By contrast, older research shows that a mix of emotions, including negative emotions like anger, leads to the most positive outcomes.”
According to Lench, the ‘functionalist theory of emotion’, which has been studied for decades, suggests that all positive or negative emotions are a person’s reactions to events in the environment and serve the purpose of warning the person against critical situations that require action. Each emotion may require a different response. For example, sadness may indicate that a person needs to seek help or emotional support, while anger may indicate that they need to take action to overcome an obstacle.
To gain a deeper understanding of the role anger plays in achieving goals, researchers conducted a group experiment involving more than a thousand participants and examined survey data from more than 1,400 participants. In each experiment, the scientists elicited either an emotional response (such as anger, amusement, desire, or sadness) or a neutral emotional state, and then presented participants with a difficult goal to achieve.
In one experiment, participants were presented with images designed to evoke specific emotional or neutral responses and then asked to solve several word puzzles. In another experiment, the goal was to achieve high scores in a ski jumping video game that featured challenging gameplay (avoiding flags on a slalom course) and an easier action requiring only one jump. Across all experiments, anger improved people’s ability to achieve goals in different difficult situations, compared to a neutral situation. In some cases, it was associated with increased scores or a shorter response time. In one of the experiments, he also improved his ‘cheating’ skill to achieve a more positive result.
IT IS A WARNING TO TAKE ACTION
However, researchers examined data from a group of surveys conducted during the US presidential elections in 2016 and 2020. Before the election took place, people were asked to rate how angry they would be if their favorite candidate did not win. After the elections, they reported whether they voted and who they voted for. Survey respondents who said they would be angry if their candidate did not win were more likely to vote in the election; On the other hand, anger had no effect on which candidate they voted for.
“These findings suggest that anger strengthens the effort to achieve a desired goal and often results in greater success,” says Lench. According to Lench, the effects of anger in encouraging people to pursue and often achieve their goals were specific to situations where goals were more difficult to achieve. Anger did not appear to be linked to goal attainment when it came to easier goals, such as a ski jumping video game.
However, Lench notes that while anger is generally linked to an increased rate of achievement, in some cases amusement or desire is also linked to an increased rate of goal attainment.
According to Lench, their results reveal that emotions that are often seen as ‘negative’, such as anger, boredom or sadness, can be beneficial. “People often tend to use positive rather than negative emotions as a tool, and to view negative emotions as unwanted and inappropriate,” he says. “Our research shows that a mix of positive and negative emotions supports personal well-being, and that in some cases using negative emotions as a tool can be particularly effective.” “It adds to the growing body of evidence on the issue.”
Original article Science Daily taken from the website. (Translated by: Tarkan Tufan)
2023-10-31 17:00:00
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