Interesting snippet - and its quoting our local University of Washington - go Dawgs!!. A good friend of mine and I have often discussed how being the quintessential positive thinker may not always be best path to happiness and success. Here's a little scientific evidence supporting our thoughts (at least for creative thoughts, so I suppose you'd need to make a connection between creative thoughts and happiness or success - but close enough for it "supporting" our theory!)...
The Power Of Ambivalent Thinking
Positive thinking may not always be a plus. According to a study by University of Washington B-school assistant professor Christina Ting Fong, ambivalent feelings -- the simultaneous anxiety and excitement of starting a new job, say -- may result in enhanced creativity. Fong divided about 100 students into four groups to write about life events that made them feel either happy, sad, neutral, or ambivalent. (Another test later assessed whether participants in each group felt the desired emotion.) The students then took the Remote Associates Test, a commonly used measure of creativity. Those who felt ambivalent came out on top. Complex emotions, theorizes Fong, may lead to complex thinking.
What's the link? MIT neuroscience professor John Gabrieli explains it this way: Problem solving requires access to all our mental resources, and an ambivalent state broadens thinking, perhaps allowing us "to cast a wider net" over the information in our brains.
By Lindsey Gerdes
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_44/c4007010.htm#ZZZUX6DTGTE
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I guess that makes sense. It explains how I magically pulled stuff out of my ass in Job interviews. Must have been all that excitement.
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