Jing Zhou, an associate professor of management at Rice University, has researched how grumpy people are more creative problem solvers. “It’s a departure from the general management philosophy that a positive mood leads to creative problem-solving,” said Zhou. A mood of contentment doesn’t fit with creativity. So bad moods can spark creativity, says the experts.
So that’s what’s how it works…
This may be translated so? Sated lion tribe sprawl in contentment on the savannah, having gorged on a kill, their need to be creative and effective in the hunt now kept in abeyance. Come the time when they become hungry, the old creative hunting instinct is re-stimulated and effective group-hunt strategies formulated.
Discomfort leads to creative solutions for alleviating distress, while contenment breeds complacency. This seems to be a cycle. Can’t have one without the other – the old pleasure-pain principle. So I wonder just how this can be translated to an understanding of modern human behavior? (Scratching the old head here!)
As usual you have provoked the necessity to think! Thanks for this!
I would like to read that study- do you have a link ti it? It does make sense.
The original news article about this was online at the Seattle P-I:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/302397_grumpyworkers05.html?source=mypi
I’m sure there are more scholarly sources as well.
I’ve noticed that people who always find flaws in everything (which often comes out as complaining and whining and can be annoying for others) are often also good at finding flaws in abstract theories or other systems, a positive thing in research and many other areas… Perfectionists must be constantly grumpy 🙂 (since there is no such thing as perfect…)
Your comment makes me think about something a doctor once told me. He said the people who are a bit hypochondriacal, who notice every little fluctuation in their bodies, are often the ones that live the longest. Maybe there is a grumpy longevity factor as well.