Negative Moods Can Positively Impact Academic Success

According to a new study, occasional negative moods could help boost a person’s academic success.

Feeling bad has academic benefits.

For some, the onset of December marks the beginning of the most wonderful time of the year. But for most university students, the upcoming weeks mean final exams, increasing stress and negative moods.

While that doesn’t seem like a perfect combination for great grades. A study from Concordia University found that occasional bursts of negative moods can enhance students’ overall academic success.

The study revealed that students who were mostly happy during their four years of university but who also experienced occasional negative moods had the highest grades at the time of graduation.

How Negative Moods and Emotional Patterns Influence Academic Success

In contrast, the study also confirmed that students who experienced high levels of negative moods and low levels of positive moods often ended up with the lowest grades, a pattern related to depressive disorders.

For the study, the researchers worked with 187 first-year students at a large university. The researchers traced the students throughout their four years of graduation by having them complete questionnaires about recent emotional experiences each year, beginning in the first year and continuing throughout their undergraduate degree.

The researchers observed students’ response patterns to better understand how experiences of positive and negative emotions occurred over time. By tracking their emotional shifts, they gained insight into how emotions fluctuated throughout the academic journey.

They then combined average patterns to analyze how each person’s emotional experiences varied from their own norm. This approach allowed the researchers to see emotional shifts on an individual basis.

Next, they examined different combinations of trait and state effects together. The analysis identified emotional patterns tied to academic success, emphasizing the balance between lasting traits and temporary states.

This allowed the researchers to identify the patterns associated with the greatest academic success: those who were happy for the most part, but who also showed bouts of elevated negative moods. These findings suggest that both negative and positive emotions play a role in our success and achievements.