How’s the weather? And your mood?

Not that my university studies in clinical psychology wouldn’t be enough of a mind-flex to combat early-onset cognitive impairments, but recently I started studying Italian. We learn in almost every class that it is always a good idea to learn languages to promote neuroplasticity. But that is not the point today…

During a class last week, at the beginning of the session, we all checked in from various parts of the world with the regular small talk: How’s the weather? How are you feeling today? My answer was very simple: It’s sunny! I’m great!

My wonderful teacher, Giulia Berlato, took the opportunity to explain the meaning of the word meteoropatico. Obviously not a word for an A2 class, but it fit the situation perfectly. And I was fascinated! Finally, people who understand me! It seems that Italians have a general and culturally accepted understanding of the fact that, yes, your mood can fluctuate with the weather. And it is not derogatory, unlike similar analogies around my part of the world.

Now I don’t know about you, but in my corner of the universe, it has been raining and was cold for the past 3-4 days. It just makes you want to crawl into a cave under a blanket and not come out ‘til the first rays of spring. The good news is, science speaks against you doing that!

It turns out that when we are in a slightly bad mood, our cognitive functions improve. When we process information, we usually take two routes. The first is, of course, the path of least resistance. We just see of the world what we want to see, and take in only the information that confirms our already existing biases. Call it mental energy efficiency. Efficient, but at the risk of being wrong. The second path is what we call systematic processing. This is the “high effort” path, where we analyse information, scrutinise what is put in front of us, and consider all facts to make a logical decision. Turns out, when we are not in a chipper mood, we are more likely to take this long road.

In one of his articles, Forgas et al. (2013) challenge the overall obsession with happiness we have today and make a case for why negative emotions have their evolutionary benefits. If they weren’t useful in any aspect of our survival, all morose people would probably have fallen victim to Darwinian selection within a couple of generations. He states that negative mood improves our memory accuracy. For example, in the case of eyewitness memory, those in a negative mood are less likely to incorporate false memories into their recollection compared to happy people. Also, in a field study, they found that on a rainy day, shoppers remembered many more details about a shop’s interior than on a happy, sunny day. Bad mood also reduces judgmental errors. It eliminates the primacy effect (when we jump to a conclusion based on the first available information), reduces the halo effect, and makes us much less gullible—we become better at detecting BS.

But probably the most useful feature of a bad mood is that it increases motivation and perseverance. According to this study, sad participants persisted longer on difficult tasks, attempted to answer more questions, and got more correct answers than happy participants. They explain this through the concept of hedonistic discounting, which describes how, when in a happy mood, we tend to think less about the future consequences of our current actions. However, when we are in a bad mood, we give much more importance to future success or future rewards.

It also creates interpersonal benefits. Apparently, we become fairer toward others, less selfish, reduce our use of stereotypes, and are overall less biased toward others.

So when you get in a bad mood next time, don’t panic. Think of a task that you kept postponing to be a “future you” problem and get to it. Make use of the cognitive benefits of negative feelings. It’s the optimal time for a deep dive or a problem-solving workshop, drafting critical communications, or doing a risk analysis. If there is none of that on your table, it’s the perfect opportunity to do some deep learning or practice critical thinking.

This doesn’t mean that we need to be grumpy all the time, or dismiss toxic workplaces and unnecessary stress as “productive.” It’s not about that. We need the good days for creativity, brainstorming, and bonding connections. But it’s a permission to be human also on the days when a transient sadness appears. We also cannot always be in a systematic processing state, as then we would never get anything done. We rely on those mental shortcuts to navigate the daily noise efficiently. However, when the internal barometer drops, don’t fight the fog. Use it to find the real problems that we easily dismiss when we are only sunshine.

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Forgas, J. P. (2013). Don’t worry, be sad! On the cognitive, motivational, and interpersonal benefits of negative mood. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(3), 225–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412474458