Effects of positive and negative moods on helping tasks having pleasant or unpleasant consequences

A field study investigated the effects of positive and negative moods on subjects' willingness to perform helping tasks having pleasant or unpleasant consequences. Results indicated that procedures designed to induce either positive or negative moods facilitate helping when the task has pleasant consequences, but tend to inhibit helping when the task is likely to be unpleasant. The findings are consistent with the notion that many everyday acts of kindness (altruism) are interpretable as a form of hedonism. The implications of these outcomes for an activation model of mood-induced altruism are discussed.     

Speculation: Wild and sound

There is no original research without guessing or speculation. However, in science there are constraints on speculation: the latter must harmonize with the bulk of background knowledge and it must be testable in some way or other. In other words, it is false that in science “anything goes”, as epistemological anarchism claims.     

The relationship of probability of success and performance following unsolvable problems: Reactance and helplessness effects

The present study assessed the effects of amount of helplessness training and probability of success given prior to performance on motivational involvement and on subsequent task performance. Subjects were exposed to either high, low, or no helplessness training on a series of cognitive discrimination problems and were given instructions regarding the probability of success on those problems. In the low helplessness condition, subjects who received moderate probability of success exhibited higher motivation to perform, higher levels of frustration and hostility, and better performance than subjects in the no helplessness condition. In the high helplessness condition, subjects who received moderate or high probability of success exhibited higher motivational involvement and greater performance decrements in the subsequent task than did control subjects. The results are discussed within the context of Wortman and Brehm's theory of reactance and helplessness.