Sadness Improves Your Judgement: Evolutionary Psychologists

Sadness plays an important evolutionary role by motivating humans to form and maintain social bonds which helped ensure survival. It causes people to remember their dependence on others and feel prompted to reconnect when separated. Sadness also improves judgment by reducing biases and promoting more detailed thinking. While temporary sadness can increase motivation, prolonged or chronic sadness in depression has lasting negative effects. The best ways to cope with sadness include taking action to improve well-being through exercise, social support, and focusing on solutions rather than dwelling on the feeling.

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Sadness Improves Your Judgement: Evolutionary Psychologists

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Rechelle

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Why do we feel sad? It sounds like a dumb question.

We all know what makes

us sad (death, failure, conflict, etc.) but what about the science behind it?
Sadness is one of the seven basic emotions that plays a role in our everyday
lives. Scientists have found that it has a much greater effect on us than
making us feel blue or bringing us to tears.
Evolutionary psychologists theorize that
“Sadness is the price we pay for our ability to form bonds with one another.”
Humans depend on each other to survive. Sadness is the emotion that makes
us remember that fact. Young children feel sad when they are separated from
their parents and it’s that sadness that prompts them to cry and/or find their
parents, potentially saving their lives. As people grow older, the sadness that
accompanies separation is what drives people to continuously invest in
relationships.

Sadness Improves Your Judgement

According to Joseph Paul Forgas, Ph.D., sadness reduces two key judgement
biases that affect how we view people.
1. The Fundamental Attribution Error: This is the tendency to believe that
people are intentional when they make mistakes or say something wrong.
When you’re sad, you’re less likely to think the worst of people.
2. The Halo Effect: On the opposite end of the spectrum, people also believe
that certain people–whether it’s because they’re attractive, successful, or
family members–can do no wrong. Sadness gives you a less biased view of
people so you also don’t exaggerate their goodness.
Forgas also found that sadness helps people assess situations more
accurately because the feeling promotes a more detailed and attentive
thinking style.
Sadness Increases Your Motivation
Studies show sadness can be a powerful motivational tool. When you’re
happyyou tend to want to stay where you are and may not feel as driven to
improve because you don’t feel the need to. That’s not the case with sadness.
While you shouldn’t go out of your way to make yourself sad if you are lacking
motivation, allowing yourself to embrace the sadness of not being where you
want to be in life, whether it’s with your relationships, career, physical health,
etc. can motivate you to put in the effort to get to a happier place.
Note: It’s important to note that the benefits sadness are only with sadness,
not depression. Sadness is the temporary emotion that we all feel on
occasions when we’ve been hurt or something is wrong in our lives and it
fades over time. Depression is a chronic mental illness that can have lasting
effects and often won’t go away until it’s been treated.
How to Be Less Sad
Despite its short-term benefits, frequently feeling sad lowers your quality of
life. Luckily, how you deal with sadness has a huge effect on how powerful it
is. According to Deepak Chopra, the best way to cope is to be proactive.
Here are some of his tips:
 Instead of focusing on your sadness, take actions to be happier
 Share your feelings with a friend/loved one
 Focus on improving your well-being. Plenty of research has shown that
exercise and eating healthy boosts your mood
 Recognize what’s making you sad and don’t obsess over the feeling.
Everyone experiences sadness and throwing yourself a pity-party isn’t going
to help.