Friday, September 19, 2008
Mood and Intelligence
UK researchers have vindicated Oscar the Grouch. They found that children who are made to be happy and cheerful all the time are in fact not as clever as ones who are made sad. Or, at least, they perform more poorly on cognitive tests.
The researchers played pre-teens either Mozart's joyous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or the sadder Adagietto by Mahler, and made six-and-seven-year-olds watch a song-and-dance number from The Jungle Book versus Simba's father's death in The Lion King, or a neutral scene from The Last Unicorn. Kids exposed to the happy stimuli performed performed more poorly on analytical reasoning tests.
The implications of this research are unclear, except that I now have science as an exuse to make fun of excessively happy people.
The researchers played pre-teens either Mozart's joyous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or the sadder Adagietto by Mahler, and made six-and-seven-year-olds watch a song-and-dance number from The Jungle Book versus Simba's father's death in The Lion King, or a neutral scene from The Last Unicorn. Kids exposed to the happy stimuli performed performed more poorly on analytical reasoning tests.
The implications of this research are unclear, except that I now have science as an exuse to make fun of excessively happy people.
Labels: children, dubious, intelligence, mood, psychology, science
