That photo of your smiling kids on the refrigerator door might do more than justmake you feel good; you might make healthier food choices after looking at it. Anew study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that positive moods canincrease our ability to understand the big picture.
"A positive mood enhances efforts to attain future well-being, encourages broaderand flexible thinking, and increases openness to information," write the study'sauthors Aparna A. Labroo (University of Chicago) and Vanessa M. Patrick(University of Georgia).
The researchers investigated the scientific basis for the simple practice ofsurrounding oneself with positive things. The first study presented identicalstatements to study participants. The statements in each set were preceded byeither a smiley face or a frowny face."The results revealed that simplyassociating a smiley with a statement resulted in the statement being construed ata higher, more abstract level."
In follow-up studies, the authors induced positive and negative moods by askingparticipants to describe either the happiest or unhappiest days in their lives. Theythen filled out three different questionnaires to determine the level of abstractversus concrete thinking. All three questionnaires showed that people in a goodmood thought more abstractly.
The authors explain that being in a good mood allows people to step backemotionally. "The research demonstrates that by signaling that a situation isbenign, a positive mood allows people to psychologically distance themselvesfrom the situation," the authors write.
"Those in a positive mood not only adopt higher-order future goals and workharder toward attaining them, but also reduce their efforts when goals areproximal or concrete," they conclude.