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Grumpiness is the feeling of being slightly annoyed. He all know grumpiness when we see it. The average U.S. adult will be in a bad mood 300 times a year. People can be grumpy for various reasons. According to the interwebs, some of these reasons are: Lack of sleep, Being hangry, Health problems, and Stress. However. Grumpiness could be the secret to success. Meredith Bennett-Smith explains in a article on Quartz that grumpiness has benefits for your job.

The author cites studies that say that feeling slightly down seems to make some people more attentive and detail-oriented in their thinking. Joseph Forgas a professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales says that the connection between irritation and attentiveness has evolutionary underpinnings. Mild negative moods can lead to us being more observant, and paying more attention to detail. “Negative mood operates as a mild alarm signal, informing us that we face a new, unfamiliar and potentially problematic situation, and so subconsciously produce a more attentive and focused thinking style.”

Advantages of grumpiness

Evidence suggests that pondering the worst has some clear advantages. Pessimists may be superior negotiators, more discerning decision-makers and cut their risk of having a heart attack. They can expect more stable marriages, higher earnings and longer lives – though, of course, they’ll anticipate the opposite. At the center this is the fact that our feelings are adaptive. They have they evolved to serve useful functions and help us thrive.

In a 2009 study Matthijs Baas at the University of Amsterdam found that students that were “a bit angrier” but not “driven to full-blown fits of rage,” produced more ideas. Their contributions were also more original, repeated by less than 1% of the study’s participants. They were better at moments of haphazard innovation, or so-called “unstructured” thinking. Professor Baas explains. “Anger really prepares the body to mobilize resources – it tells you that the situation you’re in is bad and gives you an energetic boost to get you out of it.”

The brain

To understand how this works, first we need understand with what’s going on in the brain. When you face stressful situations, your body releases hormones which prepare you for action. Then it’s up to chemical signals in the brain to get you riled up. The brain release different hormones when you are grumpy. Some of these hormones are:

• Cortisol: This is a stress hormone that is released when we feel threatened or anxious.
• Adrenaline: This is another stress hormone that is released when we face danger or excitement. 
• Testosterone: This is a sex hormone that is associated with dominance and aggression.

It is believed that this physiological response has evolved primarily to prepare the body for physical aggression. However,  this reaction is also known to have other benefits. It boosts motivation and gives people the intestinal fortitude to take mental risks. In fact, scientists are increasingly recognizing that grumpiness may be beneficial to the full range of social skills – improving language skills, memory and making us more persuasive. Professor Forgas explains. “Negative moods indicate we’re in a new and challenging situation and call for a more attentive, detailed and observant thinking style.”

Grumpiness encourages people to act better

In line with this, research has also found that feeling slightly down enhances our awareness of social cues. Professor Forgas used the dictator game to demonstrate that grumpiness encourages people to act in a better way towards others. The dictator game is a simple economic game that tests how people behave when they have the power to allocate resources between themselves and others.

It turns out that happier participants keep more of the prize for themselves. While those in a sad mood are significantly less selfish. “People who are feeling slightly down pay better attention to external social norms and expectations, and so they act in a fairer and just way towards others,” says Forgas.

Defensive Pessimism

Grumpiness creates a “Defensive pessimism” outlook. Murphy’s Law, the universal constant that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong is at the center of Defensive pessimism. By anticipating the worst, you can be prepared when it actually happens.

Defensive pessimism works like this. As an example, you have a presentation due at work. With defensive pessimism all you do is think of the worst possible outcomes. There is a traffic jam heading in to the office, your are late for the meeting, your PPT file is corrupt, your boss is going to ask hard questions. These worries spin and spin in your brain. So you need to think of some solutions to be prepared. As Andy Grove wrote, Only the paranoid survive.

Happiness is not the answer

Happiness carries far more serious risks that grumpiness. Happiness is associated oxytocin, the cuddle hormone. Studies have shown that oxytocin reduces our ability to identify threats. It prevents us paying due attention to dangers such as binge drinking, overeating and unsafe sex.

“Happiness functions like a shorthand signal that we’re safe and it’s not necessary to pay too much attention to the environment,” Professor Forgas says. Those in a continuous happy haze may miss important cues. Instead, they may be over-reliant on existing knowledge – leaving them prone to serious errors of judgement. In one study, Forgas and colleagues found that those in a good mood were less able to think skeptically and were significantly more gullible.

Gabriele Oettingen from New York University found that optimism about the future may have the most ironic effects. Positive fantasies about the future can be profoundly de-motivating. She says, “People feel accomplished, they relax, and they do not invest the necessary effort to actually realize these positive fantasies and daydreams.”

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Grumpiness is good for you. The next time someone tells you to “cheer up” tell them you are improving your improving language skills, memory, persuasiveness, and sense of fairness. Then you can have the last cynical laugh.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.