"Researchers in the area of emotions and cognition have long maintained that there are strong links between feeling and thinking. One approach in particular, the "broaden and build" theory, maintains that when you're upset about something, you view the world in terms of tiny details, but when you're happy, everything is covered in a big, rosy glow. It's impossible, the theory says, to draw a bright line between thoughts and emotions due to this process."
"According to Leiden University's Martin Kolnes and Andero Uusberg (2025), as compelling as it may seem, broaden and build theory is hard to test in the lab. In real life, you have many experiences that aren't always 100 percent negative or positive. You also have to find ways to focus even when it's the last thing in the world you feel like doing."
Negative emotions hijack working memory and attentional resources, making it difficult to think about anything else. Negative affect narrows perception to local details while positive affect promotes broader, global perspectives. Laboratory tests can struggle to replicate real-life mixed emotions and the need to perform despite being upset. The Navon test measures attentional scope by presenting a large letter composed of many small letters to reveal local versus global focus. Reducing or clearing negative emotions frees cognitive capacity, enabling clearer, wider, and more effective thinking and problem solving.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]