Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You?

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Running head: Can Sadness Be Good For You?

Can Sadness Be Good for You?

On the Cognitive, Motivational and Interpersonal Benefits of Mild Negative Affect

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Abstract

The subtle relationship between feeling and thinking, affect and cognition has

fascinated philosophers and writers since time immemorial, yet empirical research on

this topic was relatively neglected by psychologists until recently. There have been many

claims emphasizing the beneficial cognitive and behavioural consequences of positive

affect. More recent work suggests that negative affect may also facilitate optimal

performance in many situations, consistent with evolutionary theories suggesting the

adaptive signalling function of various affective states. This paper reviews traditional and

current psychological theories linking affect to social thinking and behaviour. A variety of

empirical studies from our laboratory will also be presented, demonstrating that in

many situations, negative affect promotes optimal performance in cognitive and social

tasks, including tasks such as memory, social judgments, motivation, and strategic

interpersonal behaviours. These results will be interpreted in terms of a dual-process

theory that predicts that negative affect promotes a more accommodative, vigilant, and

externally focused thinking strategy. The relevance of these findings for recent affect-

cognition theories will be discussed, and the practical implications of negative affect

promoting improved social thinking and performance in a number of applied fields will

be considered.

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Introduction

What is the role of affective states in guiding our reactions to the manifold challenges of

everyday social life? And in particular, are there any demonstrable adaptive benefits that flow

from the temporary experience of mild negative mood states? Evolutionary theorists have long

assumed that all affective reactions serve important adaptive functions, operating like

functional ‘mind modules’ that spontaneously spring into action in response to various

environmental challenges (Forgas, Haselton & von Hippel, 2007; Frijda, 1986; Tooby &

Cosmides, 1992). Interestingly, the human emotional repertoire seems heavily skewed towards

negative emotions. Four of the six basic emotions are negative - fear, anger, disgust and

sadness. The first three of these emotions clearly serve important adaptive functions preparing

the organism for flight, fight or avoidance. But what is the adaptive role of sadness, perhaps the

most ubiquitous of our negative emotions, and the one practising psychologists most often

encounter (Ciarrochi, Forgas & Mayer, 2006)?

This paper will survey a number of experimental studies providing convergent, and

somewhat counterintuitive evidence for the often useful and adaptive consequences of mild

negative affect for social cognition, judgments, motivation and interpersonal behaviour. The

evidence will show that mild sadness can have important adaptive consequences by triggering

more focused cognitive, motivational and behavioural strategies that help us deal with

demanding social situations (Frijda, 1986). In particular negative moods such as sadness may

often recruit a more attentive, accommodating thinking style that produces superior outcomes

whenever detailed, externally oriented, inductive thinking is required (Bless & Fiedler, 2006;

Forgas & Eich, 2012).

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This pattern is consistent with evolutionary, functionalist theories of affect that argue that

affective states "exist for the sake of signalling states of the world that have to be responded

to" (Frijda, 1988, p. 354). The paper begins with a brief review of theoretical approaches linking

affect to motivation and cognition, before reviewing a number of experiments demonstrating

the sometimes beneficial effects of negative affective states for social thinking and behaviour.

Affect, Cognition and Behaviour

It is the influence of mild mood states rather than distinct emotions that will be of interest

here, as moods are more common, more enduring and typically produce more uniform and

reliable cognitive and behavioural consequences than do more context-specific emotions

(Forgas, 2002, 2007). Moods are low-intensity, diffuse and relatively enduring affective states

without a salient antecedent cause and therefore little conscious cognitive content. In contrast,

emotions are more intense, short-lived and usually have a definite cause and conscious

cognitive content and recruit more conscious and context-dependent responses (Forgas, 1995,

2002).

Relatively few early experiments looked directly at affective influences on cognition and

behaviour. However, interest in the cognitive and behavioural consequences of affect increased

exponentially in recent years. Contemporary theories linking affect to cognition identify two

kinds of affective influences: (1) informational or valence effects (such as affect congruence),

when an affective state directly influences the valence of information people access and use,

and (2) processing effects, when affect influences the way information is processed.

Valence Effects

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Affect can influence the valence of thinking and behaviour according to two complementary

theories, the affect priming, and the affect-as-information models. The affect-priming account

(Bower, 1981) argues that affect is integrally linked to an associative network of memory

representations. Experiencing an affective state may thus selectively prime associated

constructs previously linked to that affect, and such affect-congruent ideas are more likely to be

used in subsequent constructive cognitive tasks, resulting in a bias towards affect-congruent

memories, inferences and judgments. Numerous studies found that people selectively

remember more mood-congruent details from their childhood, and recall more mood-

congruent events from the recent past (Bower, 1981). Mood congruence can also influence how

people interpret social behaviours (Forgas, Bower & Krantz, 1984) and form impressions of

others (Forgas & Bower, 1987). However, affect priming is also subject to several boundary

conditions, and is most reliably obtained when tasks require open, elaborate and constructive

processing, as is the case with many inferences, associations, impression formation, and

interpersonal behaviours (e.g., Forgas, 2002, 2007; Forgas & Eich, 2012).

A complementary affect-as-information (AAI) model was proposed by Schwarz and Clore

(1988; Clore, Schwarz & Conway, 1994) suggesting that "rather than computing a judgment on

the basis of recalled features of a target, individuals may ... ask themselves: 'how do I feel about

it? [and] in doing so, they may mistake feelings due to a pre-existing state as a reaction to the

target" (Schwarz, 1990, p. 529). Thus, people may misattribute a pre-existing affective state to

an unrelated stimulus. Such affective misattribution is most probable when “the task is of little

personal relevance, when little other information is available, when problems are too complex

to be solved systematically, and when time or attentional resources are limited” (Fiedler, 2001,

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p. 175), as is the case, for example, when people are asked to perform simple, personally

uninvolving off-the-cuff judgments (Forgas & Moylan, 1987; Schwarz & Clore, 1988).

Processing Effects

Affect may also influence the process of cognition, that is, how people think (Clark & Isen,

1982; Forgas, 2002; Forgas & Eich, 2012). A recent and comprehensive explanation for these

processing effects by Bless and Fiedler (2006) suggests that different moods have an

evolutionary signaling function recruiting qualitatively different processing styles. According to

this theory negative moods call for accommodative, bottom-up processing, focusing attention

on the details of the external world. In contrast, positive moods recruit assimilative, top-down

processing and greater reliance on pre-existing internal schematic knowledge and heuristics

(Bless, 2000; Bless & Fiedler, 2006; Fiedler, 2001). This affectively induced assimilative /

accommodative processing dichotomy received considerable support in recent years suggesting

that moods perform an adaptive function preparing us to respond to different environmental

challenges. For example, Fiedler, Asbeck and Nickel (1991) found that those in a positive mood

were more likely to engage in constructive processing and were more influenced by prior

priming manipulations when forming judgments about people, while negative mood reduced

this tendency. In contrast negative affect, by promoting attention to new external information,

can reduce judgmental mistakes (Forgas, 1998a), reduce halo effects and primacy effects in

impression formation (Forgas, 2011a,b), improve the quality and efficacy of communication

strategies (Forgas, 2007), and also improve eyewitness memory (Fiedler et al., 1991; Forgas,

Vargas & Laham, 2005). The theory thus implies that both positive and negative mood can

produce processing advantages albeit in response to different situations that require different

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strategies. This model explicitly affirms that negative affect does have important adaptive

functions, as several of the experiments reviewed here will show.

Integrative Models

Integrative theories such as the Affect Infusion Model (AIM; Forgas, 1995; 2002) seek to link

the informational and processing effects of mood and also specify the circumstances that

facilitate or inhibit affective influences on cognition and behaviour. The AIM predicts that

affective influences on cognition depend on the processing styles recruited in different

situations that can differ in terms of two features: the degree of effort, and the degree of

openness of the information search strategy they recruit. By combining processing quantity

(effort), and quality (openness, constructiveness) the model identifies four distinct processing

styles: direct access processing (low effort, closed, not constructive), motivated processing (high

effort, closed, not constructive), heuristic processing (low effort, open, constructive), and

substantive processing (high effort, open, constructive). Affect infusion should be most likely

when constructive, substantive or heuristic processing is adopted. In contrast, affect should not

infuse thinking and behaviour when motivated or direct access processing is used.

The following experiments exploring affective influences on cognition typically employ a

two-stage procedure. Participants are first induced into a positive or negative mood using films,

music or autobiographic memories. The effects of mood are then explored in subsequent tasks

in what is described as a separate, unrelated experiment. Evidence for the potentially adaptive

benefits of negative affect will be summarized in four sections, dealing with (1) memory, (2)

judgments, (3) motivation, and (4) strategic interpersonal behaviours.

Affective influences on memory

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Memory – the ability to access previously encoded knowledge – is perhaps the most

fundamental cognitive faculty (Forgas & Eich, 2012). Accurately remembering the past is a

difficult and demanding task, such memories can be of crucial importance in everyday life, as

well as in forensic and legal practice (Loftus, 1979; Neisser, 1982). Negative mood, by recruiting

a more accommodative and externally focussed processing style, should result in improved

memory performance. Eyewitness memory in particular is often distorted by what people pay

attention to, as well contamination by subsequent incorrect information (Fiedler et al., 1991;

Loftus, 1979; Wells & Loftus, 2003). In one experiment we showed participants photos of a car

crash scene (negative event) or alternatively, a wedding party scene (positive event; Forgas et

al., 2005, Exp. 1). One hour later, they were induced into happy or sad moods and then received

questions about the scenes that either did, or did not contain misleading, false information (eg.

‘Did you see the stop sign at the scene?’ when there was no stop sign). After a further 45-

minute interval eyewitness memory was assessed.

As expected, negative mood reduced, and positive mood increased the tendency to

incorporate false, misleading information into eyewitness memories. In fact, negative mood

almost completely eliminated the common “misinformation effect” (Loftus, 1979). A signal

detection analysis confirmed that negative mood actually improved the ability to accurately

discriminate between correct and false details.

We found a similar pattern in a subsequent experiment, when students witness a staged but

highly realistic 5-minute altercation between a lecturer, and a female intruder (Forgas et al.,

2005, Exp. 2). Misleading information was introduced one week later, when happy and sad

eyewitnesses responded to questions about the incident that either did, or did not contain

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false, planted information (eg., ‘Did you see the young woman in a brown jacket? when the

intruder wore a black jacket). We tested eyewitness memory after a further interval and found

that those in negative mood while exposed to misleading information were less influenced by

the planted details, and retained more accurate eyewitness memory (Figure 1), as also

confirmed by a signal detection analysis. Interestingly, people seem unable to control this mood

effect, even when explicitly instructed to do so according to a third experiment suggesting that

negative affect can improve memory performance, consistent with the assimilative /

accommodative theory (Fiedler & Bless, 2001; Forgas, 1995, 2002).

The effects of mood on memory were further confirmed in a realistic field experiment, in a

small suburban shop (Forgas, Goldenberg & Unkelbach, 2009). We were curious whether happy

and sad people might remember differently a number of small unusual objects (little trinkets,

toys, matchbox cars, etc.) we placed near the check-out counter. Mood was induced naturally,

by carrying out the experiment on cold, rainy and unpleasant days (negative affect), or bright,

sunny, warm days (pleasant affect; Schwarz & Clore, 1988). We asked shoppers as they left the

shop to try to remember as many of these items as possible. As expected, people in a slightly

negative mood (on rainy days) had significantly better memory for the objects they saw in the

shop than did happy people questioned on a bright, sunny day (Figure 2). Thus, it seems that

mild, natural moods indeed have an effect on memory accuracy, with negative mood improving

memory, consistent with the assimilative / accommodative processing model.

Figures 1 and 2 about here

Judgmental effects

Mood effects on the Fundamental Attribution Error.

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The fundamental attribution error (FAE) refers to the common tendency to infer

intentionality and ignore situational causes. Negative affect, by promoting more

accommodative processing, should reduce the incidence of the FAE by directing greater

attention to external, situational information (Forgas, 1998b). When happy or sad participants

were asked to make inferences about the writer of an essay advocating a popular or unpopular

position (for or against nuclear testing) that they believed was either assigned, or was freely

chosen (eg. Jones & Harris, 1967), negative affect reduced the FAE. This was further confirmed

in a follow-up field study. Participants feeling good or bad after seeing happy or sad movies

read and made attributions about the writers of popular and unpopular essays (arguing for, or

against recycling). Once again, those in a negative mood were less likely to make incorrect,

dispositional inferences based on assigned, coerced essays. Further (Forgas, 1998a, Exp. 3),

negative mood also improved memory for essay details, consistent with a more accommodative

processing style. A mediational analysis confirmed that processing style was a significant

mediator of mood effects on judgmental accuracy.

Negative Affect Reduces Halo Effects and Primacy effects

Halo effects occur because judges tend to assume that a person having some positive

features is likely to have others as well. In another experiment we (Forgas, 2011b) asked happy

or sad judges to read a one-page philosophical essay. We also attached a photo of the writer

showing either a casually dressed young female, or a tweedy, bespectacled older male,

expecting that the appearance of the ‘writer’ should exert a halo effect on judgments. This

indeed was the case, but those in a negative mood were much less influenced by the

appearance of the writer than were judges in a positive mood. Positive mood in turn magnified

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halo effects – both the essay, and the writer more positively evaluated when the photo showed

a middle-aged male (typical philosopher) rather than a young female (Figure 3.)

Figure 3 about here

Primacy effects occur because people prematurely form a superficial impression based on

early details, and fail to process later stimulus information carefully and attentively (Asch, 1946;

Luchins, 1958). As moods can play an important role in triggering qualitatively different

processing strategies (Bless & Fiedler, 2006; Forgas, 2002, 2007), primacy effects should be

reduced by the more attentive, accommodative thinking style promoted by negative mood

(Forgas, 2011a. We asked happy and sad participants to form impressions about a target

character, Jim described with the order of two paragraphs describing him first as an extrovert

and then as an introvert, or in the reverse order (Luchins, 1958). There was a significant overall

primacy effect - but negative mood completely eliminated this common judgmental bias.

Conversely, primacy effects were consistently accentuated in a positive mood. (Figure 4).

Figure 4 about here

Gullibility and Scepticims.

If negative affect promotes attention to stimulus details, it should also improve people’s

ability to detect deception (eg. Lane & de Paulo, 1999). We asked happy or sad participants to

detect deception in the videotaped statements of people accused of theft (Forgas & East,

2008b). Negative affect enhanced judges’ ability to correctly discriminate between deceptive

and truthful targets according to a signal detection analysis, confirming the beneficial cognitive

consequences of mild negative affect (Forgas & East, 2008b; Figure 5).

Figure 5 about here

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Mood may well influence how people perceive and interpret inherently ambiguous

interpersonal communications. For example, we found that those in a negative mood were

significantly less likely to accept facial expressions as genuine than were people in the neutral or

happy conditions. Indeed, negative affect may well function as a general defence against

excessive gullibility and increasing scepticism. In one experiment happy or sad participants judged the

likely truth of a number of urban legends and rumours such as ‘power lines cause leukaemia’ or ‘the CIA

murdered Kennedy’ (Forgas & East, 2008a). As expected, negative mood increased scepticism and reduced

gullibility for new and unfamiliar claims (Forgas, 2002). In another experiment participants were informed

about the likely truth of 25 true and 25 false general knowledge trivia statements. Two weeks later, after a

mood induction, only participants in a negative mood could correctly distinguish between the true and false

claims they had seen previously. Thus, negative mood, by promoting a more accommodative, systematic

processing style (Fiedler & Bless, 2001) produced a more accurate subsequent discrimination between true

and false claims.

Evaluating the truth or falsity of information may also be influenced by subjective ease of

processing, or fluency (Unkelbach, 2006; Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009). Can negative affect

reduce the extent to which people rely on heuristic cues, such as fluency in their truth

judgments (Koch & Forgas, 2012) ? In this study, after a mood induction participants judged the

truth of 30 ambiguous statements presented with high or low visual fluency (against a high or

low contrast background). Judges in a neutral and positive mood rated fluent (presented with

high contrast) claims as significantly more true than disfluent claims (presented with low visual

contrast; Figure 6). However, negative affect completely eliminated this fluency effect,

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consistent with Bless and Fiedler’s (2006; Fiedler, 2001) assimilative/accommodative processing

dichotomy.

Figure 6 about here

Reliance on pre-existing stereotypes may also be constrained by negative mood. In one

study happy or sad people made rapid shoot or don’t shoot responses to targets that did, or did

not appear to be Muslims. In this ‘shooter bias’ paradigm (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink,

2002), we found a significantly greater tendency overall to shoot at Muslims rather than non-

Muslims, but interestingly, negative affect actually reduced this tendency (Unkelbach, Forgas, &

Denson, 2008; Figure 7). It was positive affect that increased a selective ‘shoot’ bias against

Muslims, consistent with more top-down, assimilative processing that facilitates reliance on

pre-existing knowledge such as stereotypes in subliminal responses (Bless & Fiedler, 2006;

Forgas, 1998a,b; 2007).

Figure 7 about here

Motivational Benefits on Negative Mood

There is a great deal of anecdotal and some scientific evidence suggesting that negative

mood may sometimes trigger greater effort than positive affect (Clark & Isen, 1982). In one

experiment we explored the possibility (Goldenberg & Forgas, 2012) that negative affect should

produce beneficial motivational consequences and increase perseverance. If a person is already

in a positive affective state, this may result in the discounting of the expected hedonistic value

of future success, reducing perseverance (hedonistic discounting). In contrast, negative affect

may result in placing greater value on the expected hedonistic benefit of success, improving

motivation. In one study, happy or sad participants were allowed to work on a cognitive abilities

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task as long as they liked. Participants in the positive mood spent significantly less time working

on the task compared to those in a negative mood, attempted fewer items, and scored fewer

correct answers (Figure 8). A mediational analyses supported the hedonistic discounting

hypothesis, confirming that it was mood-induced differences in task-value beliefs about the

value of future success that mediated mood effects on perseverance.

Figure 8 about here

Negative affect may also help to eliminate some counter-productive strategies such as self-

handicapping (Jones & Berglas, 1978). In one study (Alter & Forgas, 2007), we predicted and

found that positive mood increased, and negative mood decreases defensive self-handicapping.

When participants had reason to doubt their ability to perform well, positive affect significantly

increased their defensive tendency to self-handicap (preferring a performance inhibiting drink;

Figure 9). In contrast, negative affect reduced self-handicapping. Given the pervasive role of

affect in achievement outcomes, it is surprising that the influence of moods on perseverance

and self-handicapping received little prior attention. In terms of the hedonistic discounting

hypothesis, feeling happy may compromise the desire to work harder to obtain further

hedonistic benefits. It now appears that in some circumstances, negative affect may actually

deliver greater perseverance and a reduction in dysfunctional self-handicapping behaviours

(Alter & Forgas, 2007; Goldenberg & Forgas, 2012).

Figure 9 about here

Strategic Interpersonal Behaviours

One of the possible benefits of negative affect may have to do with its interpersonal

functions. Evolutionary psychologists, puzzled by the ubiquity of dysphoria, have speculated

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that negative affect may provide hidden social benefits by possibly arousing interpersonal

sympathy, and reducing the likelihood of interpersonal challenges and competition (Forgas,

Haselton & von Hippel, 2007; Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). More recent work demonstrated a

number of further interpersonal benefits. As Homo Sapiens is an extremely gregarious species,

coordinating our interpersonal strategies presents a demanding cognitive task that requires

open, constructive thinking. According to the AIM, affective states should have a mood-

congruent influence on many interpersonal behaviours (Forgas, 1995, 1999a,b). Positive affect

may selectively prime more optimistic, positive but also more confident, assertive and

sometimes, selfish behaviours. In contrast negative affect should prime more pessimistic,

negative interpretations and produce more cautious, polite and considerate interpersonal

strategies (Bower & Forgas, 2001; Forgas, 1995; 2002).

Thus, in situations calling for self-confidence and assertiveness (such as negotiation, or

self-disclosure) positive affect may confer distinct benefits (Forgas, 2002, 2011c). However,

there is growing evidence that in other situations where more cautious, more considerate and

less assertive behaviour is appropriate, it may be negative affect that produces real

interpersonal benefits.

Language Use

Can temporary negative mood improve people’s communication strategies and language

use? According to Grice’s cooperative principle, conversational utterances should ideally

conform to the maxims of quantity, relevance, quality, and manner. In three experiments (Koch,

Forgas & Matovic, 2013) we predicted and found that participants in a negative mood complied

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significantly better with Grice’s normative maxims than did participants in a positive mood

when using natural language to describe previously observed social events (Figure 10).

Figure 10 about here

Experiments 2 and 3 further confirmed that negative mood actually improved the quality of

language production, and this effect was not merely due to improvements in the encoding (Exp.

2) and retrieval (Exp. 3) of the relevant information. These findings are consistent with affect–

cognition theories predicting that positive affect promotes a more internally focused and

assimilative thinking and communication style, and negative mood promotes more externally

focused and accommodative thinking, in this instance resulting in the closer observance of

communication norms.

These mood effects may apply not only to language production, but negative mood may also

improve people’s ability to monitor and understand language. Two experiments (Matovic, Koch

& Forgas, 2014) explored mood effects on people's ability to correctly identify ‘bad’ sentences

that are ambiguous and lack clear meaning in the absence of further contextual information

(ambiguous anaphora). We predicted and found that negative affect, induced by film clips,

indeed improved people's ability to detect linguistic ambiguity in target sentences (Figure 11).

Figure 11 here

An analysis of response latencies (Studies 1 & 2) also confirmed that negative mood

produced longer and more attentive processing, and a mediational analysis suggested that

processing latencies mediated mood effects on detecting linguistic ambiguity. These results are

again consistent with negative affect selectively promoting a more concrete, vigilant and

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externally focused and accommodative information processing style, producing closer attention

to the communicative content of a message.

Request Strategies

Moods may also influence strategic langue use such as formulating effective requests.

Requesting is a complex interpersonal task that must be formulated with just the right balance

between assertiveness vs. politeness to maximize compliance without risking giving offence.

While positive mood may increase subjective confidence which may produce a more assertive

and less polite requesting style, sad mood should lead to more polite and considerate requests

(Forgas, 1999a). We found that when happy or sad persons were asked to formulate requests in

various situations (Forgas, 1999a), sad persons used more polite while happy participants

preferred more assertive and impolite request forms. These mood effects on requesting were

magnified by more difficult rather than easy and routine interpersonal situations that required

more elaborate, substantive processing.

These mood effects on requesting were also replicated in real-life interactions (Forgas,

1999b, Exp. 2). Participants who first viewed happy or sad films were asked by the experimenter

to get a file from a neighbouring office. When entering the room, their natural requests were

surreptitiously recorded; negative mood again resulted in significantly more polite, elaborate

and hedging requests, whereas those in a positive mood used more direct and less polite

strategies (Figure 12).

Figure 12 about here

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 18

Of course, negative affect will not always result in more considerate and effective

interpersonal strategies. Several experiments show that in some contexts, positive affect

provides clear interpersonal benefits. For example, those in a positive mood tend to be more

effective and integrative negotiators (Forgas, 1998a), tend to respond more positively to

requests directed at them in a natural setting (Forgas, 1998b), are better at managing

interpersonal self-disclosure (Forgas, 2011c), and may be more effective in some organizational

situations (Forgas & George, 2001). However, these effects are not universal. In some situations

where more caution, tact, consideration and attention to external norms is required, it is

negative rather than positive affect that seems to promote more effective interpersonal

behaviours.

Interpersonal Fairness

Selfishness versus fairness is a basic dimension when relating to others. Several studies

looked at mood effects on the level of selfishness vs. fairness people display in strategic

interactions such as the dictator game and the ultimatum game. In the dictator game the

allocator has the power to allocate a scarce resource (eg. money, etc.) between himself and

another person in any way they see fit. In the ultimatum game, proposers face a responder who

has a veto power to accept or reject the offer. As Bless and Fiedler (2006) suggested, negative

affect should promote greater attention and accommodation to the external demands of

fairness norms. In contrast, positive affect should recruit a more internally oriented, assimilative

processing style, increasing selfishness in allocations.

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 19

In several experiments we found (Tan & Forgas, 2010) that happy players were significantly

more selfish and kept more resources (eg. raffle tickets) to themselves than did sad players. The

same pattern was confirmed when a series of 8 allocations to different partners were analysed:

overall, those in a sad mood were again consistently more fair and less selfish and gave more

resources to their partner. Further, as the trials progressed, happy individuals actually became

more selfish, and sad individuals became more fair (Figure 13).

Figure 13 about here

These mood effects on fairness also occurred in the more complex decisional environment

faced by players in the ultimatum game, where proposers must necessarily consider the

willingness of responders to accept or reject their offers (Forgas & Tan, 2013). As hypothesized,

those in a negative mood were more fair and allocated significantly more resources to others

than did happy individuals. These mood effects could be directly linked to differences in

processing style, as sad individuals also took significantly longer to make allocation decisions

than did happy individuals, consistent with their expected more accommodative and attentive

processing style.

How does mood influence responders? In the final experiment in this series (Forgas & Tan,

2013), all participants were ‘randomly’ allocated to be responders rather than proposers.

Overall, 57% of those in negative mood rejected unfair offers compared to only 45% in the

positive condition, consistent with processing theories that predict that negative mood should

increase and positive mood reduce attention to external fairness norms even by responders.

These results are also in line with recent findings showing that negative mood increases

attention to external information (Forgas, 1998a,b; 1999a,b; Forgas et al., 2009; Unkelbach et

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 20

al., 2008), further challenging the common assumption in much of applied, organisational,

clinical and health psychology that positive affect has universally desirable social and

interpersonal consequences.

Persuasion

One of the most ubiquitous influence strategies in everyday life is verbal persuasion. Despite

long-standing interest in how persuasive messages are processed by recipients (eg. Eagly &

Chaiken, 1993), the question of how affect influences the production of persuasive messages

attracted far less attention (but see Bohner & Schwarz, 1993). In a series of studies, we

predicted that accommodative processing promoted by negative affect should result in more

concrete, factual and therefore more effective and successful persuasive messages (Forgas,

2007). For example, negative mood participants who were asked to write persuasive arguments

for or against an increase in student fees, or Aboriginal land rights produced higher quality

arguments (as rated by trained observers) on both issues than did happy participants. A

mediational analysis showed that it was mood-induced variations in argument concreteness

that influenced argument quality. Negative affect also resulted in better persuasive arguments

for or against Australia becoming a republic, and for or against a right-wing party (see Figure

14), consistent with negative mood promoting a more concrete processing style (Bless &

Fiedler, 2006; Fiedler, 2001; Forgas, 2002).

Figure 14 about here

Were these ‘negative mood’ arguments actually also more effective? When the arguments

produced by happy or sad participants were presented to naïve undergraduate students,

arguments written by negative mood participants were significantly more successful in

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 21

producing a real change in attitudes than were arguments produced by happy participants. This

was also the case when happy or sad participants typed on-line persuasive arguments to a

‘partner’ in what they believed were real interactions. A mediational analysis again confirmed

that negative mood induced more accommodative thinking, and more concrete and specific

arguments. Managing personal relationships involves a great deal of elaborate strategic

information processing, and it is an intriguing possibility that mild negative affect may actually

promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately, more successful communication

style in many social situations.

Summary and Conclusion

The experiments reviewed here provide convergent evidence that negative affective states

can provide distinct adaptive advantages in many everyday social situations. These results are

consistent with recent evolutionary theories that suggest that the affective repertoire of human

beings has been largely shaped by the functional demands of our ancestral environment, and all

of our affective states – including the unpleasant ones – function as ‘mind modules’ and can be

shown to produce benefits in some circumstances (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992).

The evidence reviewed here stands in stark contrast with the overwhelming intuitive

emphasis on the benefits of positive affect in the recent literature, as well as in popular culture

(Forgas & George, 2001). It is clear that positive affect is not universally desirable: people in a

negative mood are less prone to judgemental errors (Forgas, 1998b), are more resistant to eye-

witness distortions (Forgas et al., 2005), can be more motivated (Goldenberg & Forgas, 2015),

are more sensitive to social norms (Forgas, 1999a,b), and are better at producing high-quality

and effective communication strategies (Forgas, 2007; Koch et al., 2013; Matovic et. al., 2014).

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 22

Given the consistency of the results across a number of different experiments, tasks and mood

inductions, these rather counter-intuitive effects appear reliable.

Of course, we do not claim that negative affect is always beneficial, or that positive affect

does not have adaptive consequences in some settings. Clearly, intense, enduring and

debilitating negative affect such as depression have very negative consequences. We focused

here on the cognitive, motivational and interpersonal consequences of mild, temporary mood

states, of the kind that we all regularly experience in everyday life. Our findings are broadly

consistent with the notion that over evolutionary time, affective states became adaptive,

functional triggers that promote motivational and information processing patterns that are

appropriate in a given situation.

The investigations reviewed here have several interesting implications. It would be of

considerable importance to pursue and expand this line of research in order to discover the

boundary conditions of the cognitive benefits of negative affect. Based on prior work (Forgas &

Eich, 2012) it is reasonably likely that strong pre-existing motivational states may well override

the processing consequences of mood states (Forgas & Fiedler, 2007). The potential processing

benefits of more intense emotional states, as distinct from moods, also deserve further inquiry.

The work presented here also has some implications for the practice of psychology. Dealing

with negative affectivity is perhaps the most important task of many practicing and applied

psychologists. It would be of considerable benefit if training programs for professional

psychologists could include a clearer recognition of the potential benefits of mild negative

affective states, as demonstrated here. Given the one-sided cultural emphasis on the ready

attainability of enduring happiness, and the preponderance of self-help books promising its

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 23

achievement, perhaps our cultural views about the human affective repertoire also need to be

revised. A wider dissemination of information about the need to accept mild negative moods as

a normal part of the human condition could well be helpful to many laypersons who may have

formed unreasonable expectations in this regard.

Dealing with the demands of our social environment is necessarily a complex and

challenging task that requires a high degree of elaborate processing (Forgas, 1995; 2002). The

empirical studies presented here suggest that in many situations, negative affect may increase,

and positive affect decrease the quality and efficacy of cognitive processes and interpersonal

behaviours. Much has been learned about the way affective states influence memory, thinking

and judgements in recent years, yet not enough is known about the evolutionary mechanisms

that are responsible for the way we respond to various affective states.

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 24

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 30

Figure 1. Mood effects on the tendency to incorporate misleading information into

eyewitness memory (Experiment 2): negative mood reduced, and positive mood increased

eyewitness distortions due to misleading information (false alarms; after Forgas, Vargas &

Laham, 2005).

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Forgas – Can Sadness Be Good for You? - 31

Figure 2. The effects of good or bad mood, induced by the weather, on correct and incorrect

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recall of items casually seen in a shop. (After Forgas et. al, 2009).
17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Figure 3. Mood moderates the incidence of halo effects on the evaluation of an essay:

positive mood increased, and negative mood eliminated the halo effect associated with the

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appearance of the writer (after Forgas, 2011b).
17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Figure 4. The effects of mood and primacy on the evaluation of a target person: positive
mood increases, and negative mood reduces the primacy effect on evaluative judgments

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(vertical axis; after Forgas, 2011).
 17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Figure 5. The effects of mood and the target’s veracity (truthful, deceptive) on judgments of
guilt of targets accused of committing a theft (average percentage of targets judged guilty in
each condition (After Forgas & East, 2008b).

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17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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negative negative mood significantly reduced the tendency for people to rely on visual fluency
Figure 6. The interactive effects of mood and perceptual fluency on truth judgments:

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as a truth cue (after Koch & Forgas, 2012).
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0.200
Differential Response Bias Beta

0.160

0.120

0.080

0.040

0.000

Happy Neutral Angry

Mood

Figure 7. The turban effect: Stimulus figures used to assess the effects of mood and wearing or
not wearing a turban on subliminal aggressive responses. Participants had to make rapid shoot /
don’t shoot decisions in response to targets who did or did not hold a gun, and did or did not
wear a Muslim head-dress (a turban). Those in a positive mood were more likely, and those in a
negative mood were less likely to selectively shoot at targets wearing a turban.

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17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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 17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Figure 8. Positive affect reduces perseverance: The effects of induced mood on (a) the time
spent (in seconds) on persevering with a cognitive abilities task, (b) the number of tasks
attempted, and (c) the number of questions correctly answered (After Goldenberg & Forgas,
2012).

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17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Figure 9. The effects of induced mood on self-handicapping: Percentage of participants who

selected the performance impairing tea as a function of mood condition (After Alter and Forgas,

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2007).
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Figure 10. Mood effects on adherence to Grice’s (1975) conversational

maxims (Z-scores): overall, negative mood produces fewer overall
violations of the cooperative principle in spoken language compared
with positive mood (after Koch, Forgas & Matovic, 2013, Exp. 1).

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 17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Figure 11. Mood effects on ability to detect ambiguous communication: negative mood
promoted the more accurate recognition of ambiguity in communicative sentences compared
to positive mood (After Matovic, Koch & Forgas, 2014).

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17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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mood decreases the degree of politeness, elaboration and hedging in strategic communications
Figure 12. Mood effects on naturally produced requests: Positive mood increases, and negative

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(After Forgas, 1999b).
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Positive
Neutral
Negative
7
Mean argument quality

4
Quality Concreteness

Figure 13. Mood effects on the quality and concreteness of the persuasive messages
produced: negative affect increases the degree of concreteness of the arguments produced,
and arguments produced in negative mood were also rated as more persuasive (After Forgas,
2007, Experiment 2).

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17429544, 2017, 1, Downloaded from https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ap.12232, Wiley Online Library on [11/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Figure 14. The effects of mood on selfishness vs. fairness: happy persons kept more rewards

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to themselves, and this effect is more pronounced in later trials.