negative images

The other day, I found a reference somewhere to a study purporting to demonstrate that being unhappy has a number of positive features -- making you less gullible and improving your judgment and memory. The experimenter induced happy or sad moods in his subjects through movies or by prompting recollections of past events and found that those 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.

Interestingly enough, the study also found that sad people were better at crafting persuasive written arguments, concluding that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style." Which, I suppose, may fit in with the frequently-made observation that negative posts often seem, not only more interesting to read, but easier to write. Or, to put it another way, (as Tolstoy almost said) happy blogs are all alike; every unhappy blog is unhappy in its own way.

Anyway, what's your mood today: :) or :( or some other emoticon altogether?