Being bad-tempered and pessimistic helps you
to earn more, live longer and enjoy a healthier
marriage. It’s almost enough to put a smile on
the dourest of faces.
On stage he’s a loveable, floppy-haired prince
charming. Off camera – well let’s just say he
needs a lot of personal space. He hates being
a celebrity. He resents being an actor. To his
ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley's friends he was
apparently known as ‘Grumpelstiltskin ’.
Hugh Grant may be famed for being moody and
a little challenging to work with . But could a
grumpy attitude be the secret to his success?
The pressure to be positive has never been
greater. Cultural forces have whipped up a
frenzied pursuit of happiness, spawning billion-
dollar book sales, a cottage industry in self-help
and plastering inspirational quotes all over the
internet.
Now you can hire a happiness expert, undertake
training in ‘mindfulness’, or seek inner
satisfaction via an app. The US army currently
trains its soldiers – over a million people – in
positive psychology and optimism is taught in
UK schools. Meanwhile the ‘ happiness index’
has become an indicator of national wellbeing
to rival GDP.
The truth is, pondering the worst has some
clear advantages. Cranks may be superior
negotiators , more discerning decision-makers
and cut their risk of having a heart attack.
Cynics can expect more stable marriages,
higher earnings and longer lives – though, of
course, they’ll anticipate the opposite.
Good moods on the other hand come with
substantial risks – sapping your drive, dimming
attention to detail and making you
simultaneously gullible and selfish . Positivity is
also known to encourage binge drinking,
overeating and unsafe sex.
At the centre of it all is the notion our feelings
are adaptive: anger, sadness and pessimism
aren’t divine cruelty or sheer random bad luck
– they evolved to serve useful functions and
help us thrive.
Take anger. From Newton’s obsessive grudges
to Beethoven’s tantrums – which sometimes
came to blows – it seems as though visionary
geniuses often come with extremely short
tempers. There are plenty of examples to be
found in Silicon Valley. Amazon founder Jeff
Bezos is famed for his angry outbursts and
insults (such as “I’m sorry, did I take my
stupid pills today?”) yet they haven’t stopped
him building a $300 billion company.
For years, the link remained a mystery. Then in
2009 Matthijs Baas from the University of
Amsterdam decided to investigate . He
recruited a group of willing students and set to
work making them angry in the name of
science. Half the students were asked to recall
something which had irritated them and write a
short essay about it. “This made them a bit
angrier, though they weren’t quite driven to full-
blown fits of rage,” he says. The other half of
the group were made to feel sad.
Next the two teams were pitched against each
other in a game designed to test their
creativity. They had 16 minutes to think of as
many ways as possible to improve education at
the psychology department. As Baas expected,
the angry team produced more ideas – at least
to begin with. Their contributions were also
more original, repeated by less than 1% of the
study’s participants.
Anger really prepares the body to
mobilise resources
Read more HERE
to earn more, live longer and enjoy a healthier
marriage. It’s almost enough to put a smile on
the dourest of faces.
On stage he’s a loveable, floppy-haired prince
charming. Off camera – well let’s just say he
needs a lot of personal space. He hates being
a celebrity. He resents being an actor. To his
ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley's friends he was
apparently known as ‘Grumpelstiltskin ’.
Hugh Grant may be famed for being moody and
a little challenging to work with . But could a
grumpy attitude be the secret to his success?
The pressure to be positive has never been
greater. Cultural forces have whipped up a
frenzied pursuit of happiness, spawning billion-
dollar book sales, a cottage industry in self-help
and plastering inspirational quotes all over the
internet.
Now you can hire a happiness expert, undertake
training in ‘mindfulness’, or seek inner
satisfaction via an app. The US army currently
trains its soldiers – over a million people – in
positive psychology and optimism is taught in
UK schools. Meanwhile the ‘ happiness index’
has become an indicator of national wellbeing
to rival GDP.
The truth is, pondering the worst has some
clear advantages. Cranks may be superior
negotiators , more discerning decision-makers
and cut their risk of having a heart attack.
Cynics can expect more stable marriages,
higher earnings and longer lives – though, of
course, they’ll anticipate the opposite.
Good moods on the other hand come with
substantial risks – sapping your drive, dimming
attention to detail and making you
simultaneously gullible and selfish . Positivity is
also known to encourage binge drinking,
overeating and unsafe sex.
At the centre of it all is the notion our feelings
are adaptive: anger, sadness and pessimism
aren’t divine cruelty or sheer random bad luck
– they evolved to serve useful functions and
help us thrive.
Take anger. From Newton’s obsessive grudges
to Beethoven’s tantrums – which sometimes
came to blows – it seems as though visionary
geniuses often come with extremely short
tempers. There are plenty of examples to be
found in Silicon Valley. Amazon founder Jeff
Bezos is famed for his angry outbursts and
insults (such as “I’m sorry, did I take my
stupid pills today?”) yet they haven’t stopped
him building a $300 billion company.
For years, the link remained a mystery. Then in
2009 Matthijs Baas from the University of
Amsterdam decided to investigate . He
recruited a group of willing students and set to
work making them angry in the name of
science. Half the students were asked to recall
something which had irritated them and write a
short essay about it. “This made them a bit
angrier, though they weren’t quite driven to full-
blown fits of rage,” he says. The other half of
the group were made to feel sad.
Next the two teams were pitched against each
other in a game designed to test their
creativity. They had 16 minutes to think of as
many ways as possible to improve education at
the psychology department. As Baas expected,
the angry team produced more ideas – at least
to begin with. Their contributions were also
more original, repeated by less than 1% of the
study’s participants.
Anger really prepares the body to
mobilise resources
Read more HERE
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