According to the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle saw happiness as the ultimate reward that motivates all human behavior. But happiness isn’t necessarily always good.
In one study, people were put on teams and instructed in two tasks. The first was a Sudoku and the second was a creative task to come up with uses for a brick.
The team leader was an actor and half the time he acted happy while explaining the tasks. The rest of the time he acted sad. When the “boss” acted happy the team did 200% better on the creative task and 400% worse on the analytical task.
In another study, designed to mimic the daily job demands faced by air-traffic controllers, people sat, watched a screen, and were told to push a button when two blips came too close to each other. Again, the team leader acted either happy or sad.
The participants actually performed better and rated the task as more enjoyable when they had a sad leader. Happiness and enthusiasm are helpful in some situations but a somber emotional state is better sometimes.
Comfort with the status quo tends to reduce our attention to detail and undermine performance on analytical tasks while excitement generally enhances abstract and creative thinking.
So be careful who you associate with in which situations because emotions are contagious.
Andy's Quote of the Day 
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