Is it better to be happy or right? Study says people don’t experience positive emotions when…

Who would have thought that people don’t experience positive emotions being right about bad things. A recent study published in psycnet.apa.org challenges the idea that you may find satisfaction in having your pessimistic expectations confirmed. Also read: Think positive! Train the brain daily to keep negative emotions at bay

Per the study, the notion of ‘doomsayer’s delight’ suggests that the emotional satisfaction of being right might, in some cases, outweigh the negative impact of the outcome itself. For example, a person who constantly predicts disaster might feel a sense of validation when their warnings are confirmed, even if they are now facing an unpleasant situation. But that is not what the results of the study found.

The idea behind the research

The study was grounded in a theoretical framework known as Predictive Processing, which proposes that the brain constantly tries to forecast future events based on past experiences – when the brain’s predictions are confirmed, it may trigger a reward response, even in situations where the prediction involves negative outcomes. The researchers tried to test this idea by examining how people react emotionally to expected versus unexpected negative and positive events.

The findings

The researchers conducted two experiments using a total of 500 participants. The experiments were set up to assess how people react emotionally when their expectations – whether optimistic or pessimistic – are either confirmed or contradicted by reality.

In both experiments, participants were shown a series of images with either positive or negative emotional content. Before each image appeared, participants were given symbols that suggested whether the upcoming image would be positive or negative. The symbols were accurate in 77 per cent of the cases, meaning the participants’ expectations were confirmed in the majority of trials. However, in 23 per cent of the trials, the symbols were misleading, creating a scenario in which participants’ expectations were violated.

When participants’ pessimistic expectations were confirmed – when they anticipated something negative and then experienced a negative outcome – they reported feeling significantly worse than when they were surprised by an unexpected negative outcome. This result suggests that people do not experience any emotional benefit from having their negative predictions validated, even though their expectations were technically correct.