Beliefs About the Positive Functions of Sadness

Sadness involves adaptive functions such as eliciting help from others or analysing the causes of failure. It also has positive features such as empathy or the co-occurrence of positive emotions. Previous studies have revealed that Asians are more likely than Westerners to perceive the utility of negative emotions. However, common people's beliefs about the positive functions of specific emotions, including sadness, remain unclear. This study aimed to identify beliefs about the positive functions of sadness in Eastern Japanese culture. In Part 1, we collected free descriptions of the positive functions of sadness (n = 253) and categorised the responses into 43 features. In Part 2, we asked 49 participants to assess the similarity between each feature pair. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis were conducted to elucidate the relationships among the features and categorise them into groups based on similarity scores. The results revealed the four groups: (1) empathy and relating to others, (2) growth and overcoming, (3) rational thinking, and (4) contribution to creativity and meaning of life. These findings indicate that Japanese people perceive sadness as an emotion with positive functions that possesses meaningful benefits in various aspects of life, which can be categorised into the four distinct positive functions.