I'm always on the lookout for interesting education research, and Natascha (Fordham intern and fellow Wahoo) does a nice job helping me track down studies. She found this one carried out??by researchers from our favorite university. Basically, they conducted experimental research with children ranging in age from 6 to 11 and found that the "style of information processing triggered by happiness could be a liability." They??"induced" (their word)??happy or sad moods in children by playing certain types of music and video clips (unclear from the summary whether Mozart was the happy or sad music), then asked them to perform tasks which required attention to detail. Children induced to feel sad repeatedly did better on the task than those induced to feel happy. Researchers concluded:
Happiness indicates that things are going well, which leads to a global, top-down style of information??processing. Sadness indicates that something is amiss, triggering detail-orientated, analytical processing. However, it is important to emphasize that existing research shows there are contexts in which a positive mood is beneficial for a child, such as when a task calls for creative thinking. But this particular research demonstrates that when attention to detail is required, it may do more harm than good.
Hmmmm....it's been my experience that??a very??detailed task actually induces sadness in and??of??itself, so I guess I can be happy about that (uh, no I can't).
