Help! I need somebody.

            With graduation looming and a contract negotiation for my new job underway, I have found myself seeking my parent’s advice more then normal.  After a bad day at school, I called my mom to ask her what I should do about my maintenance light being on in my car. She gave me the appropriate answer of “go get it checked out” but I refused to listen. I know that everybody needs advice, whether you are a thirteen-year-old girl trying to figure out if the dress you bought looks good on you, or a high powered CEO on a merger. But after my conversation with my Mom I began to wonder how someone’s moods influences whether or not they take the advice they have asked for.

            While trying to understand this phenomenon, I came across and article by Gino and Schweitzer, which researched this exact question. Through a series of two experiments, they tried to investigate how anger and incidental gratitude (gratitude trigged by an event unrelated to the advice) affected people’s reception of advice.  They found that people who felt incidental gratitude where more trusting and receptive to advice who felt neutral, and the people who felt neutral were more trusting and likely to take advice then those who felt angry. What they did not expect to find was that the more receptive participants were to advice, the better their judgment was. The people who felt angry had the poorest judgment when taking advice.

            Of course, it made sense; I was angry about my bad day at school and refused to take my moms very intelligent and reasonable advice of going to get my car checked out. This study managed to highlight a piece of human nature that affects everybody. Moods dictate a lot of things in life, interactions with people, productivity, happiness, and now ability to take advice. People will never stop asking for advice, and they will refuse to take it almost half of the time. Humans are complicated and frustrating creatures, but studies such as this one by Gino and Schweitzer help us make more sense out of our craziness. Whether it be a job, a friend, a boyfriend or your mother, remember that when someone gives advice, its not always the case that its bad. Take a big breath, check your mood, and listen again, you could be surprised by how much sense they are making.  

  ~Eleanna Antoniou

Gino, F., & Schweitzer, M. E. Blinded by anger or feeling the love: How emotions influence advice taking. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 93(5), 1165-1173.