People in a good mood have more difficulty remembering what is happening.
Elizabeth Martin of the University of Missouri showed that a good mood is bad for what is known as short-term memory – for example, the ability to recall in a conversation what we just talked about. This would explain why we have difficulty remembering the telephone number we received at the party.
Researchers assessed the mood of the participants in the experiment before and after showing them a video clip of an excerpt from a comedy – or an instructional video about laying the floor. As expected, the comedy improved the mood, while the instructional video did not change it.
After watching the video, both groups underwent memory tests. Numbers were read out to participants at a rate of four per second through headphones. After the reading was completed, the subjects were asked to enter the last six numbers in the correct order. People who recently watched the comedy and were in a good mood fared worse on average. However, as Elizabeth Martin explains, a good mood also has its advantages. It makes thinking easier and solving problems.
(CARDBOARD)