WHY IT PAYS TO BE GRUMPY AND BAD TEMPERED

“Being bad tempered and pessimistic helps you to earn more, live longer and enjoy a healthier marriage. It is almost enough to put a smile on the dourest faces”

By: Zaria Gorvett

Published: The BBC, 10 August 2016, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160809-why-it-pays-to-be-grumpy-and-bad-tempered

Level of difficulty:**

WHATCH AND LISTEN

·         Study: Being miserable can get you further in life http://www.daikhlo.com/watch/yt_0lL2Be56ggI

QUESTIONS

1.       Read half of the first page of the text. How can we tell that the article is going to be about the superiority of grumpiness? What kind of writing do you expect the text to be?

2.       What revelation does the writer make concerning negative feelings?

3.       What does “the link” refer to in the sentence “For years, the link remained a mystery? Be careful.

4.       What is the take home point from the 2009 experiment carried out by Baas?

5.       What basic intellectual response to anger best explains the link between anger and unstructured thinking? The fact that

6.       The evolutionary purpose of the physical reaction to anger, dealing with ………………….is often not called for in the modern world. The same response is still triggered and it is observed to provide…..

7.       Watch the following video before you answer this question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUKPtMBBN2A Who is more likely to have a heart attack? Why?

8.       We understand from the section of the text focusing on the relationship between anger and successful negotiating that: Mark True or False

·         Angry people increase their physical strength

·         Angry people are quicker to discover injustices and unfairness

·         People need to learn to be angry to be successful negotiators

9.       Read all about the ultimatum game. What conclusion can we draw from this experiment?

10.   Socially, happiness is considered “intrinsically virtuous” according to the text. Is this truism born out (supported) by the dictator game? How do you know?

11.   Both the ultimatum game and the dictator game come up with the same surprising conclusion: the ……………………..we are, the …………………….our sense of fairness.

12.   Study the paragraph beginning “In some situations”. Imagine you were asked by the editor of The Atlantic magazine to reorganize the paragraph. How could you do so without changing the message or the place of the first sentence?

13.   Read Forgas’ experiment. According to the results of this experiment which of the people below would you personally want to be in a happy mood?

·         Your Dad when you ask if you can borrow his car

·         Your basketball coach who is trying to sort out a disagreement

·         Your wife / husband; you have cheated on her/him but you have provided an excuse

·         Your mentor in the ER; you are an intern

14.   Why do good moods result in more stereotyping?

15.   We understand from the information concerning optimism that…Mark True or False

·         Being more stressed and a bit of a worrier is conducive to future success

·         Being happy and relaxed leads to a sedentary life

·         Optimistic people have no hope of succeeding and getting ahead

·         The more pessimistic you are the less likely you are to try to succeed

·         The more optimistic you are the more likely you are to succeed

16.   Read the section titled “Defensive Pessimism”. What does “the risks” at the beginning of this section refer to? There is more than one answer and you need to find them.

17.   We understand from the text that optimism bias can

·         Lead to attention to detail

·         Lead to the worst possible outcomes

·         Lead to the use of Murphy’s law

·         Lead to unnerving finds

·         Lead to more problems

·         Lead to lower employment rates

WRITING

Write an essay in which you discuss the advantages of “pondering the worst” and the disadvantages of optimism bias.

WHY IT PAYS TO BE GRUMPY AND BAD TEMPERED KEY AND TEACHERS’ NOTES

This text touches on the issue of the dangers of overconfidence and the increased possibility of trouble as a result in the form of oversights, miscalculation, lack of attention to detail and the like. It is a problem students may also face on exams. As such, it should lead to a lot of discussion.

1.       Possible answer: The writer starts out by describing the current emphasis on happiness. We know immediately he is going to refute it; argumentative

2.       They are adaptive OR They evolved to serve useful functions and help us thrive.

3.       The link between anger (or being bad tempered) and success

4.       Angry people are better at moments of haphazard innovation, or so called unstructured thinking

5.       The fact that anger really prepares the body to mobilize resources – it tells you that the situation you are in is bad and gives you an energetic boost to get you out of it

6.       Physical aggression; a boost to motivation and the gall to take mental risks

7.       The member of his kitchen staff; because suppressed anger increases the chances of having a heart attack three-fold

8.       All False

9.       Negative feelings enhance our sense of fairness and the need for everyone to be treated fairly

10.   No it isn’t. Happier participants keep more of the prize for themselves

11.   Angrier, greater

12.   Sentence 1 +5+6+7+2+3 OR reduce the information in sentence 2 to a dependent clause and add it on to sentence 3

13.   Happy (you want him to give you the car), sad (you want him to be fair), happy (you want her to believe you), sad (if you make a mistake people die)

14.   Because people in a good mood are less likely to think skeptically

15.   The first is true, all the rest are false

16.   Fantasizing about success, wishful thinking, optimistic thoughts

17.   Lead to more problems