07/09/2022
Sadness is the architect of change
I talked about positive emotions, but what about bitterness? This emotion is not desirable for any of us. What is her role? People are joyful when they achieve their goals, angry when something on the way to the goal is perceived as an obstacle, and sad if they experience an inability to achieve the goal or lose it itself. Sadness seems to serve two key functions. Firstly, the sad expression on a person’s face speaks volumes about his condition. Downward gaze, lowered eyelids, downward corners of the lips, eyebrows in a house - all this has a strong effect on external observers. This notification to others about bitterness says that a person with such a face needs help, and because we are social animals, such help comes repeatedly. We all know that when someone roars, our heart melts and we rush to the aid of the roarer, even if it is a mature person. Another function of bitterness is to encourage a change in thinking that helps the person to adjust. As a state of mind, sadness motivates us to do the complex mental work of rethinking our own beliefs and regrouping priorities. It expands the range of information processing so that we can understand the causes and consequences of our loss or failure, as well as the obstacles to our triumph. Sadness also helps us when we reevaluate strategies and accept new circumstances that we ourselves cannot change, and they are quite likely undesirable at the same time. The way we process information when we are bitter helps us understand why things turn out ugly and how to change the course of events. This mindset helps us set aside unrealistic expectations and goals and guides us towards better outcomes. In one study supporting this outcome, researchers simulated the environment of an international currency exchange based on historical market performance over a given period. Economics and finance students were given some market information relevant to a certain point within that period, and then asked to either make trading decisions while being given music to make them feel happy or sad. Because it was a simulation and the prospectors had data on how the currency exchange actually behaved, the scientists were able to appreciate the triumph of stock exchange students. Participants in a sad mood came up with more accurate opinions and made more realistic trading decisions than those in a happy mood, and ended up with big profits. Of course, if we have the choice to be joyful or sad, we will all choose to be joyful: while emotions are mental states that guide our thoughts, calculations, and decisions, they are also the feelings we experience. The brain states needed by emotions are usually studied in the science of emotions separately from conscious experiences. In this chapter, I introduced emotion as the mode of mental processing that colors our thought process. In a later chapter, we will look at another, conscious aspect of emotions—our feelings.
