Negative Emotions

Not too long back, I was with my mother at a retail mega store in Lahore. After shopping my mother and I arrived at the checkout for payment. A customer whose purchase was done before ours' raised an objection with the checkout processor (or cashier) concerning a discrepancy between the purchased goods and the receipt details.

This alerted me and my mother as we were next in the turn. Evident that a customer already in the line had a complain, we double checked the items in the cart and the receipt generated before payment. This validation wouldn't been so slow if we weren't alerted to the earlier untoward incident.

Later I fathomed that hadn't we caught the mood from the previous customer, we would have been more instinctive and less rational about our purchase. Not only the incident shows that moods are contagious, but also shows that we fixate on negativity. And we can't ignore the fact that negative emotions have a purpose. We may no longer be living in an African Savannah but this evolutionary trait still works to alert us to potential dangers or loss that we, as city dwellers, may face.