Happiness might be about feeling unpleasant things rather than good ones, study says

'All emotions can be positive in some contexts'

(EPA)

People might be happier feeling negative emotions, if they are the ones they want to have, according to a new study.

Traditionally, people assume that the key to happiness is experiencing positive emotions, like pleasure or joy. But it can be just as important to feel bad things too, the new research published by the American Psychological Association suggests.

"Happiness is more than simply feeling pleasure and avoiding pain," said lead researcher Maya Tamir from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in a statement. "Happiness is about having experiences that are meaningful and valuable, including emotions that you think are the right ones to have.

"All emotions can be positive in some contexts and negative in others, regardless of whether they are pleasant or unpleasant."

Professor Tamir said that the study was the first to find a relationship between happiness and the desire to experience emotions – even when those emotions are bad.

It looked at 2,324 university students from eight different countries. They were asked what emotions they desired, what emotions they actually felt, and whether they were satisfied with their life and experienced depressive symptoms.

It found that while people generally wanted more pleasant emotions and fewer bad ones, that wasn't always the case. Some 11 per cent of the participants wanted to feel less good emotions like love and empathy, and 10 per cent wanted to feel more unpleasant ones, like anger and hatred.

The study also found that the people who experienced more of the emotions they desired – whether or not those emotions were good or bad – were more satisfied with life and had less depressive symptoms.

Such findings might help people to re-consider whether their behaviour is really making them happy, Professor Tamir said.

"People want to feel very good all the time in Western cultures, especially in the United States," Tamir said."Even if they feel good most of the time, they may still think that they should feel even better, which might make them less happy overall."

More work needs to be done to check whether feeling desired emotions leads to happiness or whether it is simply associated with it, the authors said. They also said the research only looked at what are called negative self-enhancing emotions, like hatred, hostility and contempt, and extra work could look at other unpleasant emotions like fear, guilt and shame.