They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But when it comes to tackling a tricky task, researchers have found that getting angry can also be a powerful motivator.

The experiments suggest people who are angry perform better on a set of challenging tasks than those who are emotionally neutral.

The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, details how researchers at Texas A&M University conducted experiments involving more than 1,000 people, and analysed survey data from more than 1,400 people to explore the possible impact of anger on people in various circumstances.

In one experiment, students were shown images previously found to cause anger, desire, amusement, sadness or no particular emotion at all. Participants were subsequently asked to solve a series of anagrams (变形词).

The results reveal that for a challenging set of anagrams, those who were angry did better — although no difference was seen for easy anagrams.

The researchers say one explanation could be down to a link between anger and greater persistence, with the team finding those who were angry spent more time on the difficult set of anagrams.

In another experiment, participants who were angry did better at avoiding flags in a skiing video game than those who were neutral or sad, and were on a par with (同水平) those who felt amusement or desire.

“This pattern could indicate that general physical arousal (激起) had a benefit for game scores, as this would be greater in anger, amused, and desire conditions compared to the sad and neutral conditions,”the researchers write. However, no such differences in performance was found when it came to an easier video game.

“People often prefer to use positive emotions as tools more than negative and tend to see negative emotions as undesirable,” said Lench, the first author of the study. “Our research adds to the growing evidence that a mix of positive and negative emotions promotes well-being, and that using negative emotions as tools can be particularly effective in some situations.”

Higher levels of optimism (乐观主义) are related lo a longer lifetime. People with the highest levels of optimism have 11 % to 15% longer lifetime than those who practice little positive thinking. The optimists may live to age 85 or beyond.

Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring life’s stress. But when negative things happen, optimistic people are less likely to blame themselves. 【小题1】. They also believe they can control their destiny and create opportunities for good things to happen in the future.

【小题2】. Research has found optimists have a 35% less chance of a heart disease. There’s a direct connection between optimists and healthier diet and exercise behaviors, as well as a stronger immune (免疫) system and better lung function.

Optimism can be improved by training. Studies have found only about 25% of our optimism is programmed by genes (基因). 【小题3】. It turns out you can train your brain to be more positive. One of the most effective ways to increase optimism is called the “Best Possible Self” method. In this period, you imagine yourself in future, and you have achieved all your life aims and all of your problems have been solved. 【小题4】. Another way is to keep a journal only to capture positive experiences you experienced that day.

It’s not easy to carry out optimism exercises. Like exercise, they will need to be practiced regularly to keep the brain positive. 【小题5】. But isn’t a longer, happier, more positive life worth the effort?