New study shows negative emotions stimulate cognition better than positive ones

A new psychological study has shown that two negative emotions are actually useful. Scientists have found that sadness and fear sharpen self-control.

According to the study published in Cognition & Emotion, emotions play a key role in shaping behavior and cognition, especially in executive functions such as attention, problem solving, and inhibition.

While positive emotions, such as happiness, are commonly associated with cognitive flexibility, the role of negative emotions, such as fear and sadness, in executive control has been less clear. Justin Storbeck and his colleagues conducted a study to elucidate the specific effects of discrete emotions on inhibitory processes, drawing on frameworks such as the emotion and goal compatibility theory, which suggests that emotions improve executive functions based on their relevance to the achievement of specific goals.

The scientists conducted several experiments. The first involved 141 participants who were randomly assigned to one of four emotional states (sadness, fear, happiness, or neutrality). The anti-saccade task, which measures oculomotor inhibition, required participants to look away from a visual cue. Accuracy was recorded as the main measure of inhibitory control. In all experiments, participants also performed a manipulation test to assess the effectiveness of emotion induction, and before performing the inhibition tasks, they were asked to report their emotional state. Participants who were in a state of sadness and fear showed significantly higher accuracy in the anti-saccade task, successfully counteracting reflexive eye movements toward the cue. This result suggests that sadness and fear improve inhibitory control, helping participants to focus by minimizing distractions compared to the state of happiness and neutral state, Psy Post writes.

The second experiment had 150 participants perform a reversal inhibition task after emotion induction, where they switched between sets of targets (e.g., identification by shape, size, or orientation). Reversal inhibition was measured by comparing reaction times to return to the previously relevant set of targets and the new set of targets, assessing participants' cognitive inhibition when suppressing previous cognitive sets.

The states of sadness and fear showed stronger cognitive inhibition, as participants took longer to respond to the return to the previous goal set. This suggests that sadness and fear improve cognitive inhibition by helping participants suppress previously relevant information, which helps maintain goal maintenance during task change.

In the next experiment, 154 participants were again divided into sadness, fear, happiness, and neutral conditions, with an additional anger condition, to test whether anger orientation could influence inhibition. They performed a go/no-go task that required a rapid response to the go stimulus and an inhibited response to the no-go stimulus. Behavioral inhibition was measured by the accuracy of retention of responses in the prohibition trials.

The states of sadness and fear demonstrated higher response retention accuracy, indicating better behavioral inhibition than the states of joy and anger. Anger, in particular, impaired inhibition, suggesting that withdrawal-oriented emotions, such as sadness and fear, enhance inhibitory control more effectively than approach-oriented emotions.

Overall, this research shows that sadness and fear enhance inhibitory control by helping people focus on relevant tasks by suppressing irrelevant distractions or automatic responses. These findings challenge the traditional view that negative emotions always impair cognitive performance.

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