Emotions in Motion

It seems that we're always chasing the high of a good mood or struggling to lift ourselves out of a bad one. But it may be that the mood we're meant to be in most of the time is somewhere in the middle.

Psychologist Charles Kimble, Ph.D., and his student Lourdes Maria die la Uz, both of the University of Dayton, found that people could quite easily put themselves in a positive mood by watching a Robin Williams skit or by listening to classical music (in this case, an appropriately-titled "divertimento" by Mozart). Reading a series of upbeat statements, such as "I'm full of energy and ambition," and "1 feel happy and playful today," also worked.

But these good vibrations didn't last long. After a short while, people began to neutralize their positive feelings, sometimes by recalling negative memories from their own lives. "l don't know why someone would want to get out of a good mood, but we seem to have a built-in tendency to restore a neutral state," remarks Kimble. "People are psychologically inclined to moderate their emotional reactions."

The only exception' when the experimenters told their subjects they were trying to get them into a good mood, study participants obliged them by remaining in high spirits and generating positive memories. It was only when people were left on their own to regulate their mood--a state of affairs that is closer to real life--that they brought themselves down.

"There's a theory in psychology that contends that whenever your feet an emotion, you later experience the opposite emotion in a milder form," Kimble comments. This phenomenon could explain why we feel exhilarated after being very anxious (think of the experience of a first-time skydiver), or why we. feet unexpectedly down after an enjoyable event.

PHOTO (COLOR): Psychologist Charles Kimble, Ph.D., and his student Lourdes Maria die la Uz, both of the University of Dayton, found that people could quite easily put themselves in a positive mood by watching a Robin Williams skit or by listening to classical music (in this case, an appropriately-titled "divertimento" by Mozart).