Can a bad mood be a good thing? Understand the new psychological approach

The common of psychological approaches is to focus on stimuli of happiness, but it is not always what moves someone to do something different in life. A new perspective on treatment is known as “positive psychology”. It is expanding as its method accommodates not only psychologists but also social workers, coaches and therapists.

However, there is some evidence to suggest that the approach has a downside. Follow more details about the possible benefits of bad mood.

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human psychology

Most advice given by psychologists is about living in the moment, always looking to see the positive side of things. This causes people to avoid suffering through three emotional wounds: regret, anger and worry. On the one hand, this seems like an easy task, as we avoid focusing too much on regrets and anger about the past, or worries about the future.

The fact is that human psychology is geared towards living in the past and the future. Thus, other species have instincts and reflexes to help with survival, but for humans, it depends a lot on learning and planning. This is because it is not possible to plan for the future without living in the past. Repentance, for example, is a way of reviewing past mistakes and trying to do things differently in the future.

What did the new research show?

The new approach basically shows that not always happy situations can really move us in life. The situations of regret, worry and anger can also make a difference.

Like regret and worry, anger is an instrumental emotion, as analyzed in the research. According to some results, it protects us against abuse by others and motivates those around us to respect our interests. In addition, the study even showed that a certain degree of anger can be useful in some moments, such as negotiations.

Thus, negative humor in general can be quite helpful in certain cases, making us more skeptical.