When sad is better than happy: Negative affect can improve the quality and effectiveness of persuasive messages and social influence strategies

Based on recent affect-cognition theories and research on social influence strategies, four experiments predicted and found that people in negative mood produced higher quality and more effective interpersonal persuasive messages than did people in positive mood. This effect was obtained for messages advocating both popular and unpopular positions (Experiments 1 and 2), and arguments produced in negative mood actually induced greater attitude change in naïve recipients (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 replicated these effects in an interactive situation, and mediational analyses showed that mood influenced processing style, resulting in the production of more concrete and thus more effective messages when in a negative mood. The role of negative affect in information processing and the production of interpersonal influence strategies in particular is discussed, and the implications of these findings for everyday interaction strategies, and for contemporary affect—cognition theorizing are considered.     

Incidental anger and the desire to evaluate

Our results indicate that people experiencing incidental anger are more likely than people in neutral and other emotional states to prefer to perform evaluative tasks, even though their anger may bias the evaluations they make. Induced anger increased participants’ desire to evaluate others’ ideas (Experiment 1) and made the evaluations of those ideas more negative in valence (Experiment 2). Anger increased the appeal of evaluating ideas when evaluations were expected to be largely negative but not when evaluations were expected to be positive (Experiments 3 and 4). Mediation analyses revealed that this willingness to evaluate when angry stems from a belief that evaluating others can leave angry people in a positive mood. Because people are often free to decide when to perform the tasks required of them, this tendency may have implications for how and when ideas are evaluated.     

The influence of induced mood on the inhibition of emotional information

The ability to inhibit affective information plays a major role in efficient cognitive processing. In this study the effect of mood induction on inhibitory processing of emotional material was investigated. In Experiment 1, performance on a negative affective priming task (NAP) following negative and positive mood induction (MIP) was compared to a neutral mood condition. Results revealed that, as compared with the neutral mood condition, inhibitory function for affective material was unaffected by negative MIP. However, after the positive MIP, inhibitory processes were significantly impaired. In Experiment 2, we replicated and extended the findings on positive affect and inhibition. The data concerning positive mood fit with the general findings that positive mood often leads to a “loose, flexible” processing mode. The null-finding concerning negative mood and inhibition is discussed in the light of research on inhibition in depression.     

Affective regulation of implicitly measured stereotypes and attitudes: Automatic and controlled processes

Three experiments indicate that affective cues regulate expression of implicitly measured stereotypes and attitudes. In Experiment 1, negative mood led to less stereotypic bias on the weapon-identification task [Payne, B. K. (2001). Prejudice and perception: The role of automatic and controlled processes in misperceiving a weapon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 181-192] than positive mood. In Experiment 2, negative mood led to less implicitly measured racial prejudice than positive mood. In Experiment 3, negative, relative to positive, mood decreased women’s implicitly measured preference for the arts over math. Process-dissociation analyses suggested that affect regulated automatic attitude and stereotype activation rather than controlled influences on attitude expression. The results show that mood can shape even rudimentary forms of cognition.     

Positive mood + action = negative mood + inaction: effects of general action and inaction concepts on decisions and performance as a function of affect

General action and inaction concepts have been shown to produce broad, goal-mediated effects on cognitive and motor activity irrespective of the type of activity. The current research tested a model in which action and inaction goals interact with the valence of incidental moods to guide behavior. Over four experiments, participants' moods were manipulated to be positive (happy), neutral, or negative (angry or sad), and then general action, inaction, and neutral concepts were primed. In Experiment 1, action primes increased intellectual performance when participants experienced a positive (happy) or neutral mood, whereas inaction primes increased performance when participants experienced a negative (angry) mood. Including a control-prime condition, Experiments 2 and 3 replicated these results measuring the number of general interest articles participants were willing to read and participants' memory for pictures of celebrities. Experiment 4 replicated the results comparing happiness with sadness and suggested that the effect of the prime's adoption was automatic. Overall, the findings supported an interactive model by which action concepts and positive affect produce the same increases in active behavior as inaction concepts and negative affect.     

Sadness and ruminative thinking independently depress people's moods

Depression and rumination often co‐occur in clinical populations, but it is not clear which causes which, or if both are manifestations of an underlying pathology. Does rumination simply exacerbate whatever affect a person is experiencing, or is it a negative experience in and of itself? In two experiments we answer this question by independently manipulating emotion and rumination. Participants were allocated to sad or neutral (in Experiment 1), or sad, neutral or happy (Experiment 2) mood conditions, via a combination of emotionally evocative music and autobiographical recall. Afterwards, in both studies, participants either ruminated by thinking about self‐relevant statements or, in a control group, thought about self‐irrelevant statements. Taken together, our data show that, independent of participants' mood, ruminators reported more negative affect relative to controls. The findings are consistent with theories suggesting that self‐focus is itself unpleasant, and illustrate that depressive rumination comprises both affective and ruminative components, which could be targeted independently in clinical samples.     

Affective influences on self-disclosure: mood effects on the intimacy and reciprocity of disclosing personal information

How does mood influence people's willingness to disclose intimate information about themselves? Based on recent affect-cognition theories and research on interpersonal behavior, 3 experiments predicted and found that people in a positive mood disclosed more intimate, more varied, and more abstract information about themselves. In contrast, people in a negative mood were more attentive to the behavior of others and reciprocated self-disclosure from their partners more accurately. This effect was obtained in hypothetical situations (Experiments 1 and 2) and in realistic computer-mediated interactions as well (Experiment 3). Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed that mood effects on self-disclosure were mediated by information processing style. The role of affect in information processing and relationship behaviors in particular is discussed, and the implications of these findings for everyday interaction strategies and for contemporary affect-cognition theorizing are considered.     

Effects of induced and naturalistic mood on the temporal allocation of attention to emotional information

Building upon recent findings that affective states can influence the allocation of spatial attention, we investigate how state, trait and induced mood are related to the temporal allocation of attention to emotional information. In the present study, 125 unscreened undergraduates completed a modified rapid serial visual presentation task designed to assess the time course of attention to positive and negative information, comparing a neutral baseline mood induction to either a positive or negative mood induction. Induced negative mood facilitated attentional engagement to positive information while decreasing attentional engagement to negative information. Greater naturally occurring negative state mood was associated with faster or more efficient disengagement of attention from negative information in the presence of manipulated negative mood, relative to baseline. The engagement findings were inconsistent with our mood-congruence hypotheses and may be better explained by mood repair or affective counter-regulation theories. In contrast, the disengagement findings for state mood were somewhat consistent with our mood-congruence hypotheses. The relationship between mood and attention to emotional information may differ depending on the combination of attentional mechanism (engagement versus disengagement), aspect of mood (state, trait or induced), stimulus valence (positive versus negative) and timescale (early versus late) under investigation.     

Imprisoned by the past: Unhappy moods lead to a retrospective bias to mind wandering

Evidence suggests that mind wandering is a frequent accompaniment to an unhappy mood. Building on such work, two laboratory experiments used mood induction to assess whether the greater frequency of mind wandering in a low mood is also accompanied by a shift towards a focus on events from the past. Experiment 1 induced moods via video and induction of an unhappy mood was associated with a greater tendency for past-related mind wandering as measured by a post-task questionnaire. In Experiment 2, negative and positive moods were induced in a group of participants using the Velten mood-induction procedure and the temporal focus of mind wandering was measured using experience sampling probes. Analyses indicated that induction of an unhappy mood led to an increase in past-related mind wandering and the magnitude of this change increased with scores on a measure of depressive symptoms. Together these experiments suggest that when the mind wanders in an unhappy mood it is drawn to events from its past.     

Is manipulation of mood a critical component of cognitive bias modification procedures?

This paper investigates whether changes in mood state are an important component of cognitive bias modification (CBM) procedures. In a novel CBM procedure participants read either positive or negative statements relating to social issues for 5 min. Interpretation bias was measured by means of a scrambled sentence test, which was presented both before and after the CBM procedure. Participants who read the positive statements made more positive resolutions to the scrambled sentences, while participants who read the negative statements made more negative resolutions. Thus, the appropriate positive and negative interpretative biases were induced by the CBM procedure. However, significant mood changes also occurred following CBM. In Experiment 2, a musical mood induction procedure was presented with depressing or elating music. As before, a scrambled sentence test was presented both before and after the musical mood induction. Mood changed in accordance with the valence of the music to the same extent as with CBM. Critically however, performance on the scrambled sentence task did not change for both groups. This demonstrates that a change in mood state is not sufficient for a change in cognitive bias to occur.     

Motivation to regulate mood as a mediator between state extraversion and pleasant-unpleasant mood

This experience sampling study investigated whether state extraversion (i.e., momentary extraverted behavior) is positively associated with pleasant affect within persons and whether mood regulation motivation mediates this relationship. Seven times per day for one week, 162 participants reported on their state extraversion, pleasant-unpleasant mood, and mood regulation intention. Higher state extraversion was related to more pleasant mood, and this within-persons relationship held for 89% of individuals. Analyses with lagged predictors revealed that state extraversion predicted an increase in pleasant mood from one occasion to the next. Dispositional extraversion did not moderate the within-persons relationship. Hedonic mood regulation intention mediated the relation between state extraversion and pleasant-unpleasant mood. The findings support a self-regulation explanation of the extraversion-pleasant affect link.     

Effect of post-encoding emotion on recollection and familiarity for pictures

Although prior studies have examined the effect of post-encoding emotional arousal on recognition memory for words, it is unknown whether the enhancement effect observed on words generalizes to pictures. Furthermore, prior studies using words have showed that the effect of emotional arousal can be modulated by stimuli valence and delay in emotion induction, but it is unclear whether such modulation can extend to pictures and whether other factors such as encoding method (incidental vs. intentional encoding) can be modulatory. Five experiments were conducted to answer these questions. In Experiment 1, participants encoded a list of neutral and negative pictures and then watched a 3-min neutral or negative video. The delayed test showed that negative arousal impaired recollection regardless of picture valence but had no effect on familiarity. Experiment 2 replicated the above findings. Experiment 3 was similar to Experiment 1 except that participants watched a 3-min neutral, negative, or positive video and conducted free recall before the recognition test. Unlike the prior two experiments, the impairment effect of negative arousal disappeared. Experiment 4, where the free recall task was eliminated, replicated the results from Experiment 3. Experiment 5 replicated Experiments 1 and 2 and further showed that the impairment effects of negative arousal could be modulated by delay in emotion induction but not by encoding method or stimuli valence. Taken together, the current study suggests that the enhancement effect observed on words may not generalize to pictures.     

Mood and the subjective risk of future events

Abstract

In three experiments we investigated the relationship between mood and risk estimation. In Experiment 1, mood was changed by having subjects imagine a series of either positive or negative events. Judgements of future event likelihoods were biased in a global fashion; i.e. events which were used in the mood manipulation did not change to a greater degree than similarly valenced events not used in the manipulation. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 suggest that the failure to find specific biasing for those events used to change mood state is most likely due to interference resulting from presentation of multiple stimuli. It is concluded that events which influence mood can have both global and specific priming effects, consistent with expectations based on an activation/availability model.     

What ends a worry bout? An analysis of changes in mood and stop rule use across the catastrophising interview task

This paper reports the results of two experiments designed to test predictions from the mood-as-input hypothesis about the factors that contribute to the ending of a worry bout. Experiment 1 looked at changes in self-reported mood across a catastrophising interview task. Experiment 2 investigated whether there were any changes in stop rule deployment between the beginning and end of a catastrophising interview task. Experiment 1 demonstrated that worriers tended to show increases in negative mood and decreases in positive mood over the course of catastrophising. In Experiment 2, participants exhibited a significant shift away from endorsing the use of 'as many as can' stop rules and a significant increasing tendency to endorse the use of 'feel like continuing' stop rules over the course of catastrophising. These results suggest that worriers exhibit increases in negative mood across the worry bout, but shift from the use of 'as many as can' to 'feel like continuing' stop rules. Mood-as-input hypothesis predicts that if high worriers ask the question "do I feel like continuing?" in the context of increasing negative mood, this will imply that the activity is no longer enjoyable or profitable and should be terminated. The results are discussed in the context of mood-as-input accounts of pathological worrying and the therapeutic implications of these findings are reviewed.     

Mood congruent memory in dysphoria: the roles of state affect and cognitive style

Biases in incidental memory for self-referent adjectives and intentional memory were compared across nondysphoric (ND; n=48), experimentally induced dysphoric (EXP; n=49), and naturally dysphoric (NAT; n=48) individuals. Negative biases, "evenhandedness", and positive biases were demonstrated among NAT, EXP and ND participants, respectively, in terms of incidental memory. Correlation analyses suggested that the effects of cognitive style (self-esteem, dysfunctional attitudes, and attributional style) are limited to negative stimuli. Memory for incidental positive stimuli was only predicted by state affect. Groups did not differ in performance on an intentional memory task. Implications for network and schema models of depression are explored.     

Influences on current mood of eliciting life-satisfaction judgments

Subjective well-being (SWB) has attracted a plethora of cross-disciplinary research in recent years. As measured in this research, SWB includes a cognitive and an affective component. We hypothesize that eliciting the cognitive component by means of life-satisfaction judgments activates thoughts about positive and negative life circumstances that influence the affective component (current mood or memory of the frequency of past positive and negative affects). Experiment 1 demonstrates an expected asymmetrical carryover effect in that current mood correlates higher with life-satisfaction judgments performed before than after the measurements of current mood. In Experiment 2, it is found that inducing current mood by means of rewarding performance does not influence the life-satisfaction judgments. In contrast and consistent with Experiment 1, Experiment 3 shows such an influence when current mood is induced by thinking about positive and negative life circumstances.     

Influence of mood on health-relevant cognitions

Three experiments assessed the effects of mood on symptom appraisal, health behavior self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and perceptions of vulnerability. Ss in Experiments 1 and 2 were acutely ill, whereas Ss in Experiment 3 were healthy. In each experiment, happy, sad, and neutral moods were induced. In Experiment 1, Ss who experienced sadness reported more aches and pains and greater discomfort than happy Ss. Sad Ss were less confident that they could carry out illness-alleviating behaviors. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that mood's influence on vulnerability perceptions is moderated by health status. Although mood had little impact on perceptions of vulnerability among ill Ss, probability estimates of future negative health-relevant events among healthy Ss were mood sensitive. Seeing oneself as invulnerable to future negative events was accentuated among happy Ss and attenuated among sad Ss. Mood may be an important determinant of care seeking, adherence, and recovery from illness.     

Mood effects on eyewitness memory: Affective influences on susceptibility to misinformation

Does mood influence the accuracy of eyewitness recollections, and people’s susceptibility to misleading information in particular? Based on recent affect-cognition theories and research on eyewitness memory, three experiments predicted and found that positive affect promoted, and negative affect inhibited the incorporation of misleading information into eyewitness memories. This effect was obtained for both positive and negative events (Experiment 1), and for recorded as well as real-life incidents (Experiment 2). Participants had no meta-cognitive awareness of these mood effects, and affect-control instructions were ineffective in preventing them (Experiment 3). The cognitive mechanisms responsible for mood effects on eyewitness memories are discussed, and the implications of these findings for everyday memories, forensic practice and for current affect/cognition theorizing are considered.     

State Self-Esteem as a Moderator of Negative Mood Effects on Person Impression

Participants in a negative or a neutral mood performed an impression formation task in Experiment 1, a word fragment completion task in Experiment 2, and both tasks in Experiment 3. A self-referent versus other-referent sentence completion task was used to induce a negative mood. As a result, participants exhibited fewer mood-congruent effects on impression rating in the self-referent than in the other-referent mood induction condition, even though relevant traits had been equally activated across the two conditions. It was also shown that the self-referent induction procedure was accompanied by degrading of self-esteem, whereas the other-referent one was not. Taken together, the results suggest that the state self-esteem might be relevant to moderating of the negative mood effects on person impression.     

Seeing the big picture: Broadening attention relieves sadness and depressed mood

We examined whether the broadened attentional scope would affect people's sad or depressed mood with two experiments, enlightened by the meaning of “seeing the big picture” and the broaden‐and‐build model. Experiment 1 (n = 164) is a laboratory‐based experiment, in which we manipulated the attentional scope by showing participants zoomed‐out or zoomed‐in scenes. In Experiment 2 (n = 44), we studied how depressed mood and positive and negative emotions were affected when participants watched distant versus proximal scenes for eight weeks in real life. Healthy participants in Experiment 1, who were induced to feel sad, could return to the baseline mood after having the broadened attention task but not after having the narrowed attention task, which indicated that immediate attention broadening manipulation could function as antidotes for the lingering effects of induced negative emotions. Participants with depressed mood in Experiment 2 showed reduced depressed mood, increased positive affect, and decreased negative affect after receiving attention broadening training compared to those receiving attention narrowing training. Our findings suggest a robust role of broadened attentional scope in relieving negative emotions and even mildly depressed mood in the long run.