澳大利亞新南威爾士大學心理學教授約瑟夫？弗格斯新近的一項研究發現，負面情緒能夠提高人們的判斷力，讓他們少受騙；同時還能增強記憶力。這項研究顯示，處于負面情緒中的人對周圍環境關注更多，也更具批判性；而相比之下，開心的人們不太注意周圍環境，而且很容易相信別人對他們說的話。弗格斯教授在研究論文中表示，處于負面情緒中的人不太會有判斷上的失誤，在回顧自己目睹的事件時也較少會出錯。負面情緒激發出的這種信息處理技能能夠幫助他們應對很棘手的狀況。

    Bad moods can actually be good for you, with an Australian study finding that being sad makes people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory.

    The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who were more likely to believe anything they were told.

    "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," Forgas wrote.

    "Our research suggests that sadness … promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations."

    For the study, Forgas and his team conducted several experiments that started with inducing happy or sad moods in their subjects 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 these statements.

    People in a bad mood were also less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices, and they were less likely to make mistakes when asked to recall an event that they witnessed.

    The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style."

    "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," Forgas wrote.

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