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Level of Negative Emotion higher in Schizophrenia: Study

by Anubha Sinha on Nov 14 2014 9:32 AM

Level of Negative Emotion higher in Schizophrenia: Study
A new study has found out that in people with schizophrenia, it is the level of negative emotion that is high or otherwise they also show the same level of positive emotion and enjoyment as those without the disease.
Amy H Sanchez and her colleagues from the psychology department at the San Francisco State University gave cell phone to 47 people with schizophrenia and 41 people without schizophrenia.

Participants were telephoned four times a day for a week and inquired about their emotional state and level of enjoyment at any current activity. There was no marked difference in their positive emotion. However, people with schizophrenia were fond to show more negative emotion (P = .003) and a weaker relationship between current enjoyment and negative emotion, compared to people without the disease.

“An increase in activity enjoyment is connected to a decrease in negative emotion for people without schizophrenia, while there was less of a connection between appraisals of the environment and negative emotion for people with schizophrenia,” the report said.

To get negative emotions is very natural and we should learn to make it a part of our lives and use it to the best of our advantage, says psychologist Todd Kashdan.

“The science is very clear that when we try to conceal the distress we feel, we are less productive and less effective, and we end up feeling emotionally worse,” Kashdan said. Thus, we should understand the negative feeling and utilise that moment in giving our best.

Kashdan said that our belief of being happy all the time forces us to steer away from all negativity and discomfort without realising the fact that negative feeling goes a long way in making us psychologically strong.

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in his new book, The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self -- Not Just Your 'Good' Self -- Drives Success And Fulfillment, co-authored by Robert Biswas-Diener, Kashdan favours negative and bad feeling.

According to the book, guilt makes us better people. “Guilt adds to our moral fibre, motivating us to be more socially sensitive and caring citizens than we would be otherwise. If character is reflected in what you do when nobody's looking, then this moral emotion called guilt is one of its building blocks.”

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The book goes on to explain how self-doubt adds to our performance and in some way is healthy.

When we are in doubt about ourselves, we are forced to go for our introspection and look for ways to improve the situation. Karl Wheatley, a researcher at Cleveland State University, says that when teachers have doubt their performance, they automatically get into the mode of finding ways of personal development, collaborate with others and preparing himself to accept the change.

Kashdan’s book also says that anxiety helps us in solving a problem. “In danger zones, anxiety prevails over positivity. In such cases, anxious people quickly discover solutions, and when there is a team around them (friends, family, co-workers), they share the problem and the solutions.”

The book goes onto say that mindlessness makes us more creative. When we are not so thoughtful, it happens that a sudden burst of idea just solves a problem. So it is possible that unfocused attention gives us some new idea or thought. “It turns out that research supports the idea of creativity sneaking up on us.”

Source-Medindia


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