Cognitive Flexibility Lesson 3: Boost Your Mood

Boost your mood

How to do it

Step 1. Find a time when you have approximately 10 minutes to yourself.

Step 2. Listen to 5–10 minutes of music you find uplifting or energizing (any genre). Headphones recommended. If possible use headphones so that you are not distracted by other sounds.

Step 3. For the 8 minutes and 20 seconds of the sonata, think about a positive moment in your life. Recall what was going on in your life, specific positive thoughts you may have had, and specific feelings. If you felt loved, think about how loved you felt and thoughts that may have been running through your head, such as “I feel so confident when I’m with this person”, or “This person really understands me”, and how happy those thoughts made you feel. (2)

Why you should try it?

• Linked to feeling happier (2)
• Linked to improvements in working memory (5) and cognitive flexibility (1)
• Associated with making your mind more adaptable (4)
• Positive mood has been associated with reduced costs of switching between tasks (6)

‍

The research

• In one study, after inducing a positive mood, participants were better able to adapt to a sorting task. In one task, participants were asked to sort things based on similarity. This means that they have to focus on superordinate categories, which are broad categories (e.g. drinks), and basic categories, which are a bit more specific than superordinate categories (e.g. soda/juice/water).
  
  Less emphasis is placed on subordinate categories, which is the most specific level of category (e.g. coke/pepsi/sprite). More broad categorization facilitates making associations between possibly unrelated things, which requires cognitive flexibility. Participants in a positive mood were able to think of 5% more superordinate 23% more basic categories, along with 29% fewer subordinate categories, than those in a negative mood.
  
  In contrast, when asked to sort based on differences (requiring more subordinate and fewer superordinate or basic categories), participants in a positive mood formed 6% fewer superordinate and 6% fewer basic categories, along with 12% more subordinate categories, than those in a negative mood. (4)
  
  
• After looking at pictures that were either emotionally positive, negative, or neutral, participants were asked to complete a test measuring how fast they could switch between two tasks. Participants who were shown positive images were able to switch more quickly than those  exposed to neutral or negative images (positive: -20.88 milliseconds; neutral: -56.56 milliseconds; negative: -80.34 milliseconds). (6)
  
  
• On average, participants who experienced a positive mood induction scored 8% higher on the Remote Associates Test (RAT) than those who did not experience the positive mood induction. The RAT is a test of cognitive flexibility that provides people with three unrelated words and requires them to identify a fourth word that ties the other three words together (see image below). (1)

‍

These findings come from studies using various positive mood induction methods—including positive memories, pleasant images, or enjoyable music—not this exact protocol. This exercise combines several well-studied elements.

How it works

When people are experiencing positive emotions, they are more likely to process information globally, or in a large-scale “big picture” way, instead processing more locally, or small-scale (3). When this occurs, people tend to think more peripherally, which is indicative of divergent thinking and cognitive flexibility. They also have a broader attentional focus and incorporate a wide range of environmental cues that can facilitate more exploratory cognition (3), which is ultimately indicative of greater cognitive flexibility. These benefits are typically small to moderate and short-lived - so it works more as a quick cognitive warm-up rather than a long-lasting intervention.

‍

The evidence

1. Emich, Kyle & Pyone, Jin. (2018).
   Let It Go: Positive Affect Attenuates Sunk Cost Bias by Enhancing Cognitive Flexibility.
   Journal of Consumer Psychology
    
2. Fox, A. G., & Moore, M. T. (2019).
   Extraversion and neuroticism: Associated responses to a positive mood induction.
   Psychology of Music, 1-15
    
3. Gable P., Harmon-Jones E. (2010).
   The motivational dimensional model of affect: implications for breadth of attention, memory, and cognitive categorisation.
   Cognition & Emotion, 24 322–337.
    
4. Murray, N., Sujan, H., Hirt, E. R., & Sujan, M. (1990).
   The influence of mood on categorization: A cognitive flexibility interpretation.
   Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(3), 411–425.
    
5. Palmiero, M., Nori, R., Rogolino, C., D’Amico, S., & Piccardi, L. (2015).
   Situated navigational working memory: the role of positive mood.
   Cognitive Processing, 16(1), 327-330.
6. ‍Wang, Y., Chen J., & Yue Z. (2017).
   Positive emotion facilitates cognitive flexibility: An fmri study.Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1-11.

‍