Switch

by Chip Heath

Negative emotions tend to have a “narrowing effect” on our thoughts. If your body is tensing up as you walk through a dark alley, your mind isn’t likely to wander over to tomorrow’s to-do lists. Fear and anger and disgust give us sharp focus—which is the same thing as putting on blinders. Police detectives, for instance, frequently are frustrated by the testimony of gun-crime victims, who often can provide a rich description of the gun held by the perpetrator but can’t recall whether the perpetrator had a beard. Fredrickson argues that, in contrast with the narrowing effects of the negative emotions, positive emotions are designed to “broaden and build” our repertoire of thoughts and actions. Joy, for example, makes us want to play. Play doesn’t have a script, it broadens the kinds of things we consider doing. We become willing to fool around, to explore or invent new activities. And because joy encourages us to play, we are building resources and skills. For instance, kids learn physical skills through rough-and-tumble play; they learn to work with objects by playing with toys and blocks and crayons; they learn to get along with others by pretending to be animals or superheroes.