When you're in a bad mood, you might want to focus on tasks that are more detail-oriented:
Vicky Lai, a UArizona assistant professor of psychology and cognitive science, worked with collaborators in the Netherlands to explore how people's brains react to language when they are in a happy mood versus a negative mood.
"Mood and language seem to be supported by different brain networks. But we have one brain, and the two are processed in the same brain, so there is a lot of interaction going on," Lai said. "We show that when people are in a negative mood, they are more careful and analytical. They scrutinize what's actually stated in a text, and they don't just fall back on their default world knowledge."
[...] "We show that mood matters, and perhaps when we do some tasks we should pay attention to our mood," Lai said. "If we're in a bad mood, maybe we should do things that are more detail-oriented, such as proofreading."
[...] "When thinking about how mood affects them, many people just consider things like being grumpy, eating more ice cream, or – at best – interpreting somebody else's talk in a biased way," van Berkum said. "But there's much more going on, also in unexpected corners of our minds. That's really interesting. Imagine your laptop being more or less precise as a function of its battery level – that's unthinkable. But in human information processing, and presumably also in (information processing) of related species, something like that seems to be going on."
Journal Reference:
Vicky Tzuyin Lai, Jos van Berkum and Peter Hagoort, Negative affect increases reanalysis of conflicts between discourse context and world knowledge [open], Front. Commun, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.910482
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @09:54AM
Detail oriented guy doing some language processing? https://youtu.be/JmzUDj6aFzU [youtu.be]
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Friday March 03, @10:23AM (6 children)
In early pre-school age, I already observed happy people are much easier to be manipulated. I consider happy mood a vulnerability.
Happy people are observably more obedient, much weaker at reasoning and poor at anticipation of risks and dangers.
At greater scale, mood control clearly propagates as social control. It's "Food and Mood". Even ancient Roman Empire well understood "Bread and Games".
I keep myself systematically in forever discontent mood for exactly that reason, to prevent myself from being controlled or manipulated. Sigma, in post-modern psychology terminology. Always alerted.
Any dissent is like a permanent control escape mode.
The peak of human happiness is... so called Love. That's freaky control cheat. It's top level chemically induced hack in both personal relations and religions.
I am looking forward synthetic personoids will not fall to such a cheap trick of mind control.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 4, Touché) by nostyle on Friday March 03, @01:34PM
You seem to be confusing charity with vulnerability. We can see/hear you coming.
--
"I think it's true what they say about the squeaky wheel always getting the grease" -James Taylor, Shower the People
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 03, @02:50PM
Put another way:
I had been asking my company president (small company) for something, I forget what, for some time - maybe weeks. It was for the company, not me personally, and he had his reasons for saying no. Anyway, the need presented itself again and I happened to walk into his office as he was coming out of the in-office restroom, I mentioned the need again and he said: "Yes, go ahead." I said, "O.K. great, but what changed?" His response: "I just took a dump, I feel better, take the win before my mood changes." Solid advice.
He's also the one who had a single decoration on his office walls, a (slightly curling old paper) sign that read: "Perception is all there is." That's a very important thing for people who deal in research, science and "proof" to always keep in mind. In the context of OP, mood affects perception - often dramatically.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 03, @02:58PM (1 child)
>I keep myself systematically in forever discontent mood for exactly that reason
I will, intentionally, let myself be in a "good mood" when I receive a significant windfall, say 3 months' salary as an unexpected bonus. First time that happened, I spent 7% of that bonus on a chair, it was crazy expensive easily 3x the price of chairs that might have served the same purpose, but... that was over 25 years ago and that has been the best chair in my life. People who sit in it compliment it, it is inordinately comfortable, practical, light and easy to move, and was built with such quality that when things have worn out over the years they have been fairly easily repaired. I have often searched for a source of a new chair like it, but today anything similar is over $2000, and not as good. The Ikea Poang [ikea.com] is a pale imitation, excellent value but lacking in the recline feature, size and quality of seating cushion, etc.
Other "bonus splurges" have had uneven long term positive results, some were a waste of money (new mattress on impulse), but all in all I perceive a significant increase in quality of life by indulging in the occasional "suspension of bad mood" for decision making.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 04, @12:45AM
> The Ikea Poang [ikea.com] is a pale imitation ...
We have a Poang, just the opposite of yours -- it was free.
I grabbed it on trash day in a nearby neighborhood with newer houses (their street is a shortcut to my street). As I was loading it into the car, a woman came out of the house and asked if I wanted the matching hassock, so I wound up with that too. Fits us well, ours has cloth upholstery.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 04, @02:37AM (1 child)
Good thing no one loves you then, right? Close shave there.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday March 04, @12:54PM
I agree with you on that. It's a good thing. All those who pretended to in the past 60 years were just insidious. Trust is not renewable resource.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday March 04, @04:20AM
Since weather greatly affects mood, this might explain differences in critical abilities of cultures.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.