So the next time someone tells you to ‘cheer up’ – why not tell them how you’re improving your sense of fairness, reducing unemployment and saving the world economy?
From an article by Zaria Gorvett on BBC.com
Something about which I could have happily remained ignorant, but now it’s too late.
In 2014, which wasn’t that long ago, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute found in 2014, people working in creative fields were significantly more likely to have mental issues like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism. They found that writers, in particular, were 121 percent more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder compared to the general population, and were nearly 50 percent more likely to commit suicide.
The Karolinska study didn’t specifically mention ‘writers of online humor columns’. But they also didn’t exclude writers of online humor columns. They just said, “writers”.
But one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. (If you live, for example, in a multi-story apartment building.)
Turns out that cranky, cynical people with bad tempers are also more likely to be geniuses. In 2009, researchers at Semmelweis University published a study focused on a relatively seldom-studied gene called neuregulin 1… a gene believed to increase a person’s susceptibility to schizophrenia. What the Semmelweis researchers did, however, was connect the gene not just to insanity, but to genius as well.
People in history who might have had (or might still have) the neuregulin 1 gene? Josef Stalin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sir Isaac Newton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, King Charles III, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates.
Not that I’m comparing myself to any of these people. They were all known for throwing temper tantrums, something I would never do, unless provoked.
Nor would I commit suicide, unless provoked.
But even if I’m not ever going to be a genius, I will embrace crankiness, because of its proven benefits.
In 2009, researchers at the University of Amsterdam’s psychology department decided to investigate whether angry people were also more creative. They recruited a group of students and worked out a clever method of making them either angry or sad… in the name of science. Half the subjects were told to remember something which had pissed them off, and write a short essay about it.
The researchers explained. “This made them a bit angrier, though they weren’t quite driven to full-blown fits of rage.”
The other half of the group were made to feel sad.
Then the two teams were pitted against each other in a game designed to test their creativity. They had 16 minutes to think of as many ways as possible to improve education at the psychology department. The angry team produced more ideas, and their ideas were also more original.
Crucially, the angry volunteers were better at ‘unstructured’ thinking. If you ask a student to think of ten unusual ways to use, say, a piece of paper, only a truly angry person would think of using it to give his professor a paper cut. A sad student would never think of such a thing.
Creativity is all about coming up with ideas… the kind of ideas that happy or sad people are too happy or sad to come up with.
The article where I learned about this study didn’t mention the creative ideas the angry students had about improving the psychology department. But we can probably imagine.
Happiness is even worse than sadness. Again, this has been scientifically proven. Happiness and optimism come with considerable risks such as dimming your attention to detail and making you simultaneously gullible and selfish.
Positivity is also known to encourage binge drinking, overeating, and unsafe sex. Not necessarily in that order.
But the worst thing about expecting good things to happen? They almost never do.
Stay grumpy, and expect the worst… and you’re never disappointed.