Get Real! – Learn Meditation

It has become an increasingly dominant belief that positive thinking is necessary for health, wealth and success in all things. But a new study* by  psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, says ‘it ain’t necessarily so’.

The study has found that feeling sad makes people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory. It seems that people in a negative state are more critical of, and pay more attention to, their surroundings than happier people. The happy folk it seems are more likely to believe what they are told.

Dr Forgas said "Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world,"

He went on to add "Our research suggests that sadness … promotes

information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations."

All important in these kind of studies is what did they actually do to come to up with the data? Several experiments were done beginning with the induction of happy or sad moods in the subjects. This was achieved through watching films and recalling positive or negative events.

In one of the experiments, happy and sad participants were asked to judge the truth of urban myths and rumors and found that people in a negative mood were less likely to believe such statements.

This one came as a real surprise to me people in a bad mood were also less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices. It also seems that having the blues makes you less prone to mistakes when recalling an event witnessed.

The study also discovered that people feeling sad were better at conveying their position in written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style."

In conclusion Dr Forgas said "Positive mood is not universally desirable: people in negative mood are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high-quality, effective persuasive messages,"

I haven’t felt right about the clappy happy smiley positive good vibe movement, it seems to me to foster emotional denial and suppression. As I see it, it is just another belief system of conditioning and freedom is shedding conditioning. It is through accepting ourselves exactly as we are that we can heal and unify, we don’t need to invent new systems of unconsciousness.

I also heard an interview recently with Barbara Ehrenreich talking about her new book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. As you might imagine I really enjoyed the interview and agreed with much she said. I haven’t read the book yet but reviews on Amazon are polarized (as of today 13 five stars and 13 one star) which I take as an interesting sign.

My solution to the whole paradigm is of course – learn to meditate and stop the endless manipulation of experience without ever really being with what it is!

*The study was published in the November/December edition of the Australian Science journal.
 

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