Embracing the Unusual: Feeling Tired and Happy is Associated With Greater Acceptance of Atypical Ideas

Abstract

Three studies examined the hypothesis that feeling tired along with feeling happy might be linked to the acceptance of atypical ideas. Consistent with this hypothesis, across 3 studies and using 2 different measures of accepting atypical ideas, feelings of happiness and tiredness interacted. When people were high in tiredness, as happiness increased, so too did acceptance of atypical ideas (choosing more unusual exemplars and suggesting more unusual solutions to the gestalt completion test). When people were low in tiredness, happiness had no effect on acceptance of atypical ideas. The studies also examined whether differences in sensation-seeking (Studies 1 & 2) and acquiescence (Study 3) mediated the effect, but neither consistently did so. This work suggests that the combination of feeling tired and happy may enhance acceptance of atypical or unusual ideas, which could potentially help creative thought.

Notes

¹ One participant said that they were 5 years old; this was probably a typo for participants had to enter their age into a textbox.

² The primary focus was on feeling happy and tired. Because other mood states may affect this process, the studies assessed distressed (3 items, α = .83, anxious, upset, and distressed), calm (3 items, α = .83, tranquil, relaxed, and calm), and bored (3 items, α = .82: bored, disinterested, and dull). The data were analyzed with and without them as covariates. The findings replicated when they were included as covariates, indicating that the results could not be explained by the presence of these states. For parsimony, the analyses that did not include the covariates are reported in the text.

³ Specifically, these analyses were rerun to include distress, calm, boredom, and participants’ time slept and time awake as covariates, and the interaction between happy and tired remained significant, b = .04, se = .01, t(293) = 3.39, p < .001.

⁴ As in Study 1, the primary focus was on feeling happy and tired, but the study also assessed feeling tense (4 items, α = .81, jittery, intense, fearful, tense), energetic (6 items, α = .70; active, energetic, vigorous, lively, full of pep, wide awake), and calm (4 items, α = .73, placid, at rest, still, and quiet) to ensure that such feelings do not alter the effects (items taken from Thayer, 1989).

⁵ Including the other measured moods—calmness, energetic, and tension—as well as time awake, time slept, mental and physical tiredness, and the general tiredness subscale of the MFI as covariates did not change the significance of the interaction, b = .03, se = .01 t(278) = 2.51, p = .01.

⁶ As in Study 1 and 2, the primary focus was on feeling happy (4 items, α = .88, elated, joyous, excited, and happy) and tired (7 items, α = .91, tired, drained, sluggish, drowsy, sleepy, wakeful, and wide-awake), but the study again examined how feeling energetic (5 items, α = .92, active, energetic, vigorous, lively, and full-of-pep), tense (4 items, α = .75, jittery, intense, fearful, tense), and calm (5 items, α = .74, placid, at rest, still, quiet, and calm) affected thought by including them as covariates in the analyses.

⁷ As in studies 1 and 2, controlling for feeling energetic, tension, and calm, as well as time slept, time awake, and feeling physically and mentally tired did not change the results, b_interaction = .03, se = .02, t(315) = 2.02, p = .04.