Danni Guest Blogs: In the mood for success…

This Guest Blog Post is from Danni Ji, one of Dr. T’s Health Psychology students:

 

This recent study found that good moods help older adults to improve their decision making and working memory. Subjects were either given candy and thank you card or no reward before testing, to boost their moods. They then attempted to learn the values of a deck of a card in order to get more profit/gains than losses. Those given the reward before the task performed significantly better than those who didn’t receive the reward. These findings offer some valuable insight into social and environmental factors that can influence cognitive performance.