Sadness Study
Feeling sad? It could take up to FIVE DAYS to shift your mood: Sadness lasts 240 times longer than other emotions, study claims
By VICTORIA WOOLLASTON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:41 EDT, 31 October 2014 | UPDATED: 09:22 EDT, 31 October 2014
Key Study Claims
- Researchers asked 233 students to recollect recent emotional episodes
- They were asked to report the duration, and reveal their coping strategies
- From 27 emotions, sadness lasted 240 times longer than disgust or shame
- Fear and disgust typically lasted 30 minutes, while hatred lasted 60 hours
- Boredom also counted among the shorter emotions experienced
Getting over a break-up, mourning a loved one or generally feeling down in the dumps can feel overwhelming.
Getting over a break-up, mourning a loved one or generally feeling down in the dumps can feel overwhelming.
And now researchers have discovered this is because sadness lasts up to 240 times longer than other emotions, including feeling ashamed, surprised, irritated or even bored.
Sadness often goes hand-in-hand with events of greater impact such as death or accidents, explained the researchers.
And people therefore need more time to mull over and cope with what happened to fully comprehend it.
And people therefore need more time to mull over and cope with what happened to fully comprehend it.
To test the length and effect of emotions, Philippe Verduyn and Saskia Lavrijsen from the University of Leuven in Belgium asked 233 students to recollect recent emotional episodes and report their duration.
The participants also had to answer questions about the strategies they used to cope with these emotions.
Out of a set of 27 emotions, sadness lasted the longest, whereas shame, surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, being touched, irritated or feeling relief were over much faster.
Typically, it took 120 hours to stop feeling sad, but just 30 minutes to get over feelings of disgust and shame.
Hatred lasted for 60 hours, followed by joy for 35 hours.
Boredom was also listed among the shorter emotions, and Professor Verduyn and Professor Lavrijsen claim this means that even though time seems to pass slowly when one is bored, an episode of boredom typically doesn’t last that long.
Their research, published in Springer’s journal Motivation and Emotion, is the first to provide evidence to explain why some emotions last longer than others.
The researchers additionally discovered that emotions that last a shorter time are typically elicited by events that have relatively low importance attached to them.
On the other hand, long-lasting emotions tend to be caused by events that have strong implications for a person’s major concerns.
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Belgian researchers asked 233 students to recollect recent emotional episodes and report their duration. The participants also had to answer questions about the strategies they used to cope with these emotions. Sadness lasted, on average, for 120 hours while disgust and shame passed within 30 minutes
Professor Verduyn added some of these implications may only become apparent over time, which then causes the emotion to be maintained or strengthened.
The feeling therefore endures while a person rethinks the events and consequences over and over.
Duration was found to be a dimension that can differentiate between, otherwise very similar, emotions, too.
STUDYING THE EFFECT OF EMOTIONS
The Belgian researchers asked 233 high school students to recollect recent emotional episodes and report their duration.
The participants also had to answer questions about the strategies they used to cope with these emotions.
The length of emotions were:
Sadness: 120 hours
Hatred: 60 hours
Joy: 35 hours
Desperation, hope, anxiety, disappointment and contentment: 24 hours
Jealousy: 15 hours
Relief: 8 hours
Enthusiasm: 6 hours
Admiration and gratitude: 5 hours
Relaxation: 4.3 hours
Guilt: 3.5 hours
Stress: 3 hours
Pride: 2.6 hours
Being touched: 2.5 hours
Anger, boredom, and surprise: 2 hours
Irritation: 1.3 hours
Compassion: 1.3 hours
Humiliation: 0.8 hours
Fear: 0.7 hours
Shame, and disgust: 0.5 hours
For instance, Verduyn and Lavrijsen found that guilt is an emotion that persists much longer than shame, while anxiety lingers longer than fear.
‘Rumination is the central determinant of why some emotions last longer than others. Emotions associated with high levels of rumination will last longest,’ said Professor Verduyn.
‘Emotions of shorter duration are typically – but, of course, not always – elicited by events of relatively low importance. On the other hand, long-lasting emotions tend to be about something highly important,’ Lavrijsen explains further.
Other Resources:
Perceived Racism May Impact Black Americans’ Mental Health – https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/11/racism
Persistent Trauma of Systemic Racial Inequities and the Perils of COVID-19 – https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/persistent-trauma-systemic-racial-inequities-and
Disability Discrimination in the Rationing of Life Saving COVID Treatment: Who Gets Left Behind? | April 14 – https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/events_cle/crsj-covid-19-series/
The COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges, with projections showing that the need for life-saving treatment may far exceed both the capacity and resources of the U.S. healthcare system. This raises concerns, as states and hospital develop protocols for rationing care, namely making decisions as to who should or should not receive care and, if they do, what level of care. Presenters discussed the application of disability rights laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, to these decisions, including recent guidance from HHS’ Office of Civil Rights. Presenters also discussed recent federal and state-level legal and policy advocacy to prevent disability discrimination in access to COVID-19 treatment.