Being grumpy breeds attentiveness and clear thinking

An Australian psychology expert has discovered through a series of experiments being grumpy actually makes us better at decision making and less gullible than constantly happy types.

While being happy might encourage creativity, being grumpy encourages attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.

The Professor, a researcher at the University of South Wales said a grumpy person thinks more clearly, and can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain “promotes information processing strategies”.

In the study he asked volunteers to watch different films and dwell on positive or negative events in their life, designed to put them either in a good or bad mood.

Then participants were asked to judge the truth of urban myths and were asked to provide eyewitness accounts of events.

Those in a bad mood performed better than those who felt happy, were better communicators and made fewer mistakes.

Professor Forgas says, ‘Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world’.