Low mood:

Randolph M. Nesse:

"usually call it low mood, becauseif you say depression people think oh it's abnormal or something wrong with someone. So let's talk about low mood for a second. From my perspective it's very different from sadness and sadness happens when there's a loss. You had something you lost it it's gone and it feels awful, but you recover from that because it's a one-time thing ... I think low mood is different. ... actually I think my greatest contribution to understanding emotions is to stop all of us from saying what's it for and instead say in what situation is it useful as most emotions have multiple functions, but the situation in which low mood is useful is when your efforts aren't paying off and when you're trying to go get something or do something or prevent something and it's just not working. Then there's a built-in system in every organism, not just humans, to disengage motivation. Then wait and think of another strategy and if nothing works at all to give up on that goal entirely. These things work very well for most people. Most of us wanted to be a sports hero at some time when we were young and we gracefully gave it up when we played right field for too many years in a row and we also might have wanted to be you know the greatest philosopher or the greatest actor or the greatest something or at least to get recognition. Who knows if the greatest people actually get the recognition ... I thought it's so helpful clinically seeing patients who did have depression to ask this question is there something terribly important you're trying to do in life that just isn't working but you can't give up."

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Salopp gesagt:

Eine Verstimmung "flüstert" einem zu: "Disengage from these behaviors! These behaviors do not pay off." Oder auf Deutsch: "Unterlasse diese Verhaltensweisen! Diese Verhaltensweisen zahlen sich nicht aus."

Im Zusammenhang mit anderen Menschen: "Disengage from listening to him / to her. Listening to him / to her will not pay off."

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[Siehe auch: Switching]

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Edward Dutton:

" 'assume the person you're listening to might know something you don't.' Okay, well, that might sound terribly good. But what it is really saying is that you shouldn't be critical of others. ... You shouldn't use your own senses to judge things. I mean it's perfectly reasonable based on past observation of people that ... [it is probably] not worth listening to [some people]. ... But he's saying you should do so. In other words you should do things that are a waste of your time. That are a waste of your bioenergetic resources. That are maladaptive[.]"

Salopp: In diversen oder vielen Fällen kommt es darauf an, dem eigenen Interesse oder Desinteresse zu trauen.