Negative Effects Of Negative Emotions

“Negative” emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear can be put to good use in everyday situations. Each of these emotions have a purpose in a person’s life, especially when it comes to decision making. Anger, sadness, and fear have the potential to stop someone from making risky decisions that they could potentially make if they were excessively happy. These emotions allow a person and their brain to take a moment to process what is going on in the environment around them. Although these are “negative” emotions, these feelings affect and change people’s lives in ways they do not even realize. Ultimately, the beneficial effects of negative emotions motivate people to strive for higher standards and allow them to examine and process facts better.

Negative moods reduce the likelihood of poor decision making. Overly happy people might overlook subtle details, however, negative feelings will direct their thinking. If a person goes to a party with their friends and feels as if everything is ideal, the brain might overlook important factors. When in an unfamiliar environment, such as a party, one might become scared and pay closer attention to the setting around them. The abundance of happiness the person is experiencing is actually altering the brain’s perception and causing the individual to overlook important details. Susan David, Ph.D., states that when people are overly cheerful, “we tend to neglect important threats and dangers” (124). Positive emotions impair the thinking process that informs a person’s brain that they are in danger. David also states that negative emotions “encourage slower, more systematic cognitive processing” (124). These feelings allow someone to use better judgment rather than making rash decisions based on their spur of the moment happiness. Overall, these negative emotions allow a person’s thinking process to be more skeptical than it would if one were happy all the