Mood affects your ability to recall accurately
23 August 2004
by Richard
Conan-Davies
|
Being in a good or cheerful mood may not be the best person for a witness to a crime. In fact it seems that being in a slightly depressed or sad state of mind improves your ability to accurately recall details and not include false details. This is all according to latest research from the University of New South Wales, Australia led by Prof Joseph Forgas and presented in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. As part of the study people where grouped into either being happy or sad and viewed a bag snatch and asked about details of what they had seen. Professor Forgas explained that "The results showed that eyewitness accounts of people in a negative mood are more likely to be accurate compared to those in a positive mood state," Interestingly, the experiment also looked at how well people could write out an argument style essay depending on their mood and again discovered that those in a negative mood had a better and more convincing critical structure to their essays. |
 Being a little depressed or sad may actually make you think clearer when remembering events. |
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