Depression,restraint and eating behavior

Contrary to the belief that weight loss is a principal symptom of depression, several recent studies have suggested that certain people gain rather than lose weight when depressed. The present experiment concerned the effects of experimentally induced mood states on the eating behavior of high- and low-restraint persons. Sixty-eight female undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of three groups each designed to induce a different mood state (depressed, neutral or elated), and were classified as high or low restraint based on their responses to a questionnaire. During the mood induction procedure subjects were provided with the opportunity to eat. High-restraint persons induced into a depressed mood ate significantly more than high-restraint persons induced into neutral or elated moods, and more than low-restraint persons induced into a depressed mood. This effect was most prominent among subjects who scored high on the weight-fluctuation factor of the restraint scale. There was no evidence that this effect occurred among subjects who scored high on the concern for dieting factor. The role of emotional arousal on the self-control over eating behavior of high weight-fluctuation persons, and the implications of these findings for the evaluation of depression were discussed.     

The effect of mood and pleasant versus unpleasant information feedback on performing a motor skill

The effect of negative, positive, or neutral feedback on a rotary pursuit task as a function of the subject's depressed or elated mood was ascertained. Specifically, the self-schema hypothesis was examined. Ninety female volunteers, ranging in age from 18 to 25 years, participated. They were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions based on depressed or elated mood states, elicited by Velten's (1968) mood induction procedure, and feedback. A control group received no feedback and was not subjected to a mood inducing treatment. Baseline measures and changes in mood were determined by the Multiple Adjective Affective Checklist (MAACL). Bogus feedback was offered after all but one of the trials. The subjects' mood changed significantly during the mood-inducing treatment. For motor performance, partial support was lent to self-schema. Elated and depressed subjects performed best under positive and negative feedback, respectively. The effects, however, were temporary.     

Effects of induced elation-depression on the accessibility of memories of happy and unhappy experiences

Elated and depressed moods were induced in student volunteers on separate occasions. On each occasion they retrieved past real-life experiences associated to stimulus words presented. Subjects subsequently rated the experiences for happiness-unhappiness and pleasantness-unpleasantness on a third occasion in a neutral mood state. Extremely unhappy memories were significantly more likely to be retrieved in the depressed mood than in the elated mood. Extremely happy memories were significantly more likely to be retrieved in the elated mood than in the depressed mood. Measures of latency of retrieval showed a significant interaction between mood state and type of memory. The results confirm the generality of previous findings in suggesting an effect of mood state on the accessibility of different types of cognition. The results are considered in relation to mood as a context in contextual-specific encoding and retrieval, and in relation to models and treatment of clinical conditions.     

Reasons for Living: Mood Effects Revisited1

To explore the relationship between mood and cognitive restraints to suicide, 98 undergraduates experienced the Velten mood-induction procedure to induce an elated, depressed, or neutral (unchanged) mood. They then completed the Multiple Adjective Affect Checklist, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, and the Reasons for Living Inventory. Surprisingly, compared to neutral students, depressed students reported more overall reasons for living, greater feelings of responsibility to family, and more moral objections to suicide, and elated students reported more feelings of responsibility to family. Most responsive depressed students also had higher fear of suicide than others, and most responsive elated students had higher survival and coping beliefs than others. Results suggest that a mildly depressed mood caused students' increased reliance on cognitive beliefs about not committing suicide, and may indicate that mildly depressed persons might benefit from and be particularly receptive to cognitive interventions stressing beliefs about family and religious commitments.     

Mood and memories of parental rearing styles: A comparison of mood effects on questionnaire-cued and free recall of autobiographical memories

The relationship between memories of childhood experiences (e.g., adverse parenting) and adult depression often found raises questions of interpretation. On the one hand, both laboratory studies and clinicians' experiences suggest that subjects in a depressed mood frequently show a negative bias in perceptions and memories. Negative childhood memories in depressed persons might, therefore, be interpreted as epiphenomena of depressed mood instead of etiological factors. On the other hand, memories of childhood experiences seem remarkably stable across changes in depressed mood, especially when memories are elicited by means of standardized questionnaires. In the mood and memory literature several explanations for this stability are offered. For one thing, highly structured cues to elicit memories (such as in questionnaires) are hypothesized to be less susceptible to mood bias than unstructured memory cues (such as in free recall procedures). On the other hand, resource allocation theorists suggest that childhood memories, being well established and rehearsed, are relatively impervious to mood bias no matter how they are elicited. In this study we examined whether different methods of eliciting childhood memories (i.e., free recall and questionnaire-cued) are differentially susceptible to mood bias. To this aim, we used a mood induction procedure to induce depressed, neutral, and elated mood and assessed childhood memories both before and after the mood induction using both questionnaires and free recall to elicit memories. Results suggested that memories elicited by means of free recall as well as by means of questionnaire-cued recall were susceptible to depressed and elated mood bias. The implications for research addressing the link between childhood experiences and depression are discussed.     

Manic thinking: independent effects of thought speed and thought content on mood

This experiment found that the speed of thought affects mood. Thought speed was manipulated via participants' paced reading of statements designed to induce either an elated or a depressed mood. Participants not only experienced more positive mood in response to elation than in response to depression statements, but also experienced an independent increase in positive mood when they had been thinking fast rather than slow--for both elation and depression statements. This effect of thought speed extended beyond mood to other experiences often associated with mania (i.e., feelings of power, feelings of creativity, a heightened sense of energy, and inflated self-esteem or grandiosity).     

Hedonic tone and activation level in the mood-creativity link: toward a dual pathway to creativity model

To understand when and why mood states influence creativity, the authors developed and tested a dual pathway to creativity model; creative fluency (number of ideas or insights) and originality (novelty) are functions of cognitive flexibility, persistence, or some combination thereof. Invoking work on arousal, psychophysiological processes, and working memory capacity, the authors argue that activating moods (e.g., angry, fearful, happy, elated) lead to more creative fluency and originality than do deactivating moods (e.g., sad, depressed, relaxed, serene). Furthermore, activating moods influence creative fluency and originality because of enhanced cognitive flexibility when tone is positive and because of enhanced persistence when tone is negative. Four studies with different mood manipulations and operationalizations of creativity (e.g., brainstorming, category inclusion tasks, gestalt completion tests) support the model.     

Effects of induced mood on causal attributions for success and failure

The present research examined the influence of induced mood on causal perception and goal expectancies for an achievement-oriented activity. Prior to the administration of a laboratory task, positive and negative moods were experimentally induced in student volunteers. It was found that elated subjects were initially more confident of success than subjects temporarily made to feel depressed. Furthermore, following the receipt of bogus success/failure feedback, individuals in a positive mood perceived the causes of success as more stable than subjects in a negative mood. In addition, the judgments of elated subjects appear to have been biased in a self-enhancing direction following success, but outcome had no effect on the causal attributions of subjects temporarily induced to feel depressed. The findings indicate that prevailing affective state is an important determinant of causal perception, and suggest that mood may play a central role in the accurate or biased perception of valenced outcomes.The research reported in this article was supported by a Chancellor's Fellowship from UCLA to the author and by Grant #MH38014 to Bernard Weiner from the Public Health Service. I am grateful to Sandra Graham and Bernard Weiner for their many helpful suggestions, and to Anne Peplau and an anonymous reviewer for their perceptive comments on an earlier version of this paper. Appreciation is also expressed to the staff at the Center for Computer Based Research, UCLA, Gerald Shure, Director.     

Effects of induced mood on self-reported life events and perceived and received social support

This study tested the relation between mood (depressed [D], elated [E], or neutral [N]), induced by the Velten (1968) procedure, and college students' responses on a subjectively scored life events questionnaire and measures of perceived and received social support. A manipulation check showed that the mood manipulation was successful. There was a significant mood effect on the number of self-reported negative life events, with E subjects reporting the fewest. However, mood had no significant effect on the number of self-reported positive life events or the rated intensity of negative and positive events. Mood had a significant effect on perceived social support, with D subjects scoring the lowest. Self-report of received social support, however, was not affected by the mood manipulation. The findings challenge the widespread use of life event and perceived social support questionnaires whose independence from a mood-related response bias has not been adequately demonstrated. The findings also challenge causal interpretation of significant effects for self-reported life stress and perceived social support obtained in cross-sectional prediction studies of concurrent psychological distress.     

Relative effectiveness and validity of mood induction procedures: a meta-analysis

The effectiveness and validity of 11 important mood induction procedures (MIPs) were comparatively evaluated by meta-analytical procedures. Two hundred and fifty effects of the experimental induction of positive, elated and negative, depressed mood in adult, non-clinical samples were integrated. Effect sizes were generally larger for negative than for positive mood inductions. The presentation of a film or story turned out to be most effective in inducing both positive and negative mood states. The effects are especially large when subjects are explicitly instructed to enter the specified mood state. For elated mood, all other MIPs yielded considerably lower effectiveness scores. For the induction of negative mood states, Imagination, Velten, Music, Social Interaction and Feedback MIPs were about as effective as the Film/Story MIP without instruction. Induction effects covaried with several study characteristics. Effects tend to be smaller when demand characteristics are controlled or subjects are not informed about the purpose of the experiment. For behavioural measures, effects are smaller than for self-reports but still larger than zero. Hence, the effects of MIPs can be partly, but not fully due to demand effects.     

Happy people thrive on adversity: Pre-existing mood moderates the effect of emotion inductions on creative thinking

Past research on the relationship between affect and creativity has yielded contradictory results. Most of the evidence has tended to show that brief positive emotions as well as more enduring positive moods enhance creativity. No study to date, however, has attempted to determine whether the influence of momentary emotions on creativity depends on pre-existing moods. In the present study, 96 undergraduates completed one of two creative tasks (generating or evaluating captions for photographs) on three occasions, after watching videos designed to induce positive, neutral, or negative emotions. Participants also completed a questionnaire assessing depressed mood. Results confirmed that the effect of emotion inductions on creativity depended on pre-existing mood. Participants low in depression wrote more creative captions and rated captions more accurately with induced negative emotion than with induced positive emotion. In contrast, participants high in depression appeared impervious to the effect of emotion inductions.     

Emotion and prior knowledge in memory and judged comprehension of ambiguous stories

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the effects of experimentally induced mood states on memory and judged comprehension of stories. The experiments examined the issue of whether induction of a depressed mood would affect prose memory and comprehension and impair the ability of individuals to use prior knowledge, activated by way of a title, in remembering the passage. In Experiment 1, depressed subjects who were given a title for the passage recalled fewer idea units when compared with neutral control conditions, but no depressive deficit in recall occurred in the absence of a title. In Experiment 2 the same pattern of results occurred when subjects learned two successive passages. The depressive deficits obtained were interpreted in terms of a resource allocation model which proposes that emotional states increase the production of irrelevant, competing thoughts that interfere with processes important in remembering the criterion passage. Alternative explanations involving cognitive initiative and schema theory were discussed. Finally, judgments of comprehension predicted passage recall and were better predictors for neutral than depressed mood subjects. A depressed mood state did not affect average judgments of comprehension even when recall was correspondingly impaired.     

Emotional mood states and retrieval in episodic memory

The effect of an experimentally induced depressed mood state on recall of target words embedded in sentences was examined. The objective was to determine if the induction of a depressed mood can affect output or retrieval from episodic memory. The experimental sequence was as follows: All subjects studied a list of either elaborated or base sentences, rating them for complexity, in an incidental retention paradigm; this was followed by the induction of a depressed or neutral (control) mood, using a standard and a short form of the Velten mood induction procedure; finally, subjects were given an unanticipated cued recall test of the target adjectives. In all tests, subjects showed a reduction in recall owing to the depressed mood, which provided evidence for retrieval effects of the mood state. Elaboration led to superior recall of target items, and there was no effect of delayed recall. The results are briefly discussed within the framework of a resource allocation theory.     

Moderators of Mood-congruent Encoding and Judgement: Evidence that Elated and Depressed Moods Implicate Distinct Processes

An experiment investigated the contributions of elaborative processes to mood-congruent encoding (MCE) and judgement (MCJ) of trait adjectives that referred to the self and two others. Evidence from multiple sources (recall, judgement, decision latency) supported the main hypotheses: Elated mood produces MCE/MCJ through elaborative processes that implicate mood-congruent self-schemata; depressed mood produces MCE/MCJ through elaborative, but nonschematically based, processing of self-referent material; and, elated mood produces MCJ (but not MCE) of positive material that referred to the experimenter through simplified or heuristic (rather than elaborative) processing. The hypothesis that elated mood produces MCE/ MCJ through elaborative, but nonschematically based, processing of friendreferent material did not receive support; instead, the results suggested that mood-congruent schemata about the friend also contributed to both the encoding and judgement effects of elated mood.     

Effects of manipulating valence and arousal components of mood on specificity of autobiographical memory

An important cognitive deficit in clinical depression is the inability to be specific in recalling personal memories, a phenomenon coined "overgeneral memory" by Williams and Broadbent. Although there is general consensus that overgeneral memory is not state-dependent, most of the evidence originates from studies of this effect in clinical populations. The two components of mood, valence and arousal, were manipulated to examine their influence on memory specificity in a nonclinical sample of university undergraduate students. In Exp. 1, a Velten procedure was used to induce elated, depressed, or neutral mood states. No difference was found in autobiographical memory specificity among the three groups. In Exp. 2, high and low arousal states were induced through physical exercise. A low arousal state resulted in an increased proportion of overgeneral memories, suggesting that this memory phenomenon may be influenced by the arousal component of mood.     

Positive mood enhances divergent but not convergent thinking

A positive mood enhances creative performance. We examined which type of creativity, divergent or convergent thinking, was enhanced by a positive mood. Half of the participants listened to happy music and thought about happy events (positive group). The other half listened to the Japanese Constitution (neutral group). Participants' emotional valence and arousal were measured before and after mood induction. All participants then engaged in a creative activity involving the generation of new names for rice. The results indicated that the positive group produced more divergent ideas than did the neutral group. On the other hand, the two groups did not differ with respect to the number of convergent ideas that were generated. We suggest that being in a positive mood facilitates flexible thinking and consequently leads to production of unconventional and atypical ideas.