Profiling: What Is Sadness?

Sadness is one of the seven universal emotions experienced by people all over the world as a result of losing someone or something important. What triggers sadness can vary greatly depending on personal and cultural views of loss. Although often labeled as a “negative” emotion, sadness plays a crucial role as a signal that we may need help or comfort.

In reality, sadness covers a wide range of emotional states, from mild disappointment to deep despair and grief. It can also be felt alongside other emotions, such as:

• Anger (for example, when a loved one leaves you);
• Fear (such as feeling overwhelmed and unsure how to move forward);
• Joy (like reminiscing about time spent with someone who is no longer around).

The universal trigger for sadness is the loss of a valued person or object, though what is considered valuable and what counts as a loss can differ from person to person. Common triggers for sadness include:

• Rejection by a friend or romantic partner;
• The end of something important or saying goodbye;
• Illness or death of a loved one;
• Losing aspects of your identity (for example, during transitions at home, work, or life stages);
• Disappointment from unexpected outcomes (such as being passed over for a promotion you expected).

Sad Mood vs. Sadness as an Emotion

The key difference between mood and emotion is duration. Sadness is one of the longest-lasting emotions, often moving through stages of protest, resignation, and helplessness, and can last for days. It’s important to note that sadness is different from depression, which is a common but serious psychological disorder characterized by persistent, intense feelings of sadness and hopelessness that interfere with daily life and can be debilitating.

One of the most noticeable facial signs of sadness is a slight drooping of the upper eyelids. Few people can voluntarily control these muscles, making it especially hard to fake sadness.

Depending on the type and intensity of sadness, a person’s voice may become quieter and softer, or, conversely, rise in pitch or turn into crying. Physical sensations of sadness can include tightness in the chest, heaviness in the limbs, a lump in the throat, and tears. Loss of muscle tone, slumped posture, and looking away or downward are also common.

What Happens in the Brain?

Research suggests that sadness may be linked to increased “contact” between two areas of the brain. Scientists have found that when a person feels down, the connection between brain cells in two specific regions involved in memory and emotion—the amygdala and the hippocampus—becomes stronger.

It’s still unclear whether this increased brain communication is a cause or a result of a bad mood, and exactly how emotions and memories intertwine. Do negative emotions trigger sad memories, or is it the other way around? Still, based on experiments and how sadness works in the brain, scientists believe it can offer us important advantages.

In modern culture, sadness is often undervalued—self-help books promote the benefits of positive thinking, attitudes, and behaviors, calling sadness a “problem emotion” that should be suppressed or eliminated. However, evolution has included this emotion in our toolkit, meaning that sadness serves an important purpose from time to time, helping our species survive. While it’s easier to see the evolutionary benefits of other “negative emotions” like fear, anger, or disgust—which drive us to flee, fight, or avoid danger—sadness has its own advantages!

How Sadness Can Be Beneficial

Sadness Can Improve Memory

It’s known that on rainy, gloomy days that put people in a bad mood, they remember details of objects seen in a store much better. Conversely, on bright, sunny days when people are happy, their memory for similar details is much less accurate. It seems that positive moods can reduce, while negative moods can enhance, attention and memory for random details in our environment. With increased attention, a negative mood also lowers the chance that false information will later distort the original memory.

Sadness Can Improve Judgment

Sadness can make our judgments more accurate by encouraging a more detailed and attentive thinking style. For example, it’s known to reduce common subjective biases such as the fundamental attribution error (when people attribute others’ behavior to intent, ignoring situational factors) and the halo effect (when positive traits like an attractive face lead us to assume other positive qualities like kindness or intelligence). Negative moods can also reduce the primacy effect, where people pay too much attention to early information and ignore later details.

Sadness Can Increase Motivation

When we feel happy, we tend to want to maintain that happiness—it signals that we’re in a safe, familiar situation and don’t need to make changes. On the other hand, sadness acts as a mild alarm, increasing motivation and encouraging us to put more effort into solving problems in our environment. A sad mood can boost persistence, as people see greater potential benefits from their actions.

Sadness Can Sometimes Improve Social Interaction

Overall, happiness increases positive interactions between people. Happy people are more balanced, assertive, skilled communicators, smile more, and are generally seen as more likable. However, sadness can help in situations that require a more cautious, less assertive, and more attentive communication style. Sad people are more focused on external cues and are less likely to rely solely on first impressions, which happy people tend to trust more.

So, sad people are less prone to judgment errors, more resistant to distortions, sometimes more motivated, and more sensitive to social norms. Of course, sadness has its limits, and this doesn’t mean you should try to make yourself sad just to improve your memory. Still, mild, temporary states of sadness can be useful in various aspects of life. Evolutionary theory suggests we should accept all our emotions, as each plays an important role in certain circumstances. So, while you keep looking for ways to be happier, don’t dismiss sadness. It’s no coincidence that many of the greatest achievements in Western art, music, and literature explore the landscape of sadness, and in everyday life, people seek out this feeling by listening to sad songs, watching sad movies, and reading sad books.