Useful Emotions

For whatever reason, I haven't really ever given consideration to the idea that emotions are useful -- that I would cultivate one particular emotion because it would assist me in completing a particular task.  Sure, I have seen the football player type guy yelling at himself to get himself pumped up for the game (and secretly thought he was stupid) but using emotions as tools??

Here is a study that talks about the usefulness of anger.  Interestingly enough, the study authors found that study participants liked music and activities that made them angry if they had to complete a task that was confrontational (in this case, a shoot em' up video game). 

On the flip side though, anger was not helpful when completing a task that was non-confrontational (a video game where the participant was a restaurant server trying to deal with her customers).

We have all heard the idea that anger is healthy and I believe that to be true but...it looks like perhaps we should give some consideration to how and when we are using that emotion -- perhaps it is the right tool for the job and perhaps not.