The impact of negative moods on self-enhancing cognitions: The role of reflective versus ruminative mood orientations.

This research program examined how self-focused attention to feelings affects the relation between mood negativity and self-enhancing thought. The primary hypothesis was that the particular manner in which people focus on their moods (reflective vs. ruminative) determines whether they reveal positive (i.e., mood-incongruent) or negative (i.e., mood-congruent) self-relevant thoughts in response to negative moods. Studies 1-4 revealed that social comparisons, temporal comparisons, and other self-enhancing cognitions (i.e., attributions, disidentification, relationship evaluations) are more likely to be mood incongruent when people adopt a reflective orientation to their negative feelings and more likely to be mood congruent when they adopt a ruminative orientation. Additionally, moods and mood orientations affected self-enhancing thoughts through the mediating influence of mood regulation goals and intentions (Studies 5 and 6). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative affective states and the motivated retrieval of positive life events: The role of affect acknowledgment.

People sometimes cope with negative moods by retrieving positive memories, thus exhibiting a mood-incongruency effect. It was proposed that this type of motivated recall involves a 2-stage process: Individuals must first openly acknowledge their negative moods before they will adopt a recall strategy to alleviate their distress. Individual differences in affect acknowledgment (repression-sensitization, meta-mood beliefs, etc.) should therefore predict the occurrence of mood-incongruent recall. The results of 3 studies supported this hypothesis. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that sensitizers (but not repressors) reported more negative affect, and hence recruited more positive memories, after a negative mood induction than after a neutral mood induction. In Study 3, the same recall effects emerged when a more direct measure of affect acknowledgment, meta-mood beliefs, was used as a moderator. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieving positive memories to regulate negative mood: Consequences for mood-congruent memory.

Several researchers have suggested that mood-incongruency effects are due to a mood-regulatory process in which people retrieve positive memories to repair negative moods. The present studies tested this idea by manipulating mood-repair strategies and examining their impact on positive and negative memory retrieval. Mood-congruent retrieval occurred when participants stayed focused on events associated with their negative mood; mood-incongruent retrieval occurred when participants engaged in positive reappraisal (when they reinterpreted events as having positive outcomes). The effects of these strategies on memory retrieval also interacted with personality traits related to negative mood regulation. Individuals high in such traits showed stronger mood-incongruent memory than did individuals low in negative mood regulation traits. Discussion focuses on integrating mood-regulatory variables and personality variables into existing mood-congruency theories (e.g., associative network models). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality moderators of mood congruency effects on cognition: The role of self-esteem and negative mood regulation.

The authors report 3 experiments on negative mood regulation in which whether mood-congruency or mood-incongruency effects of negative mood on cognition were observed was dependent on an individual's self-esteem (SE). We found that most of our 224 participants tended toward mood-congruent recall under control conditions in which mood was relatively neutral. However, when a negative emotional state was induced, participants low in SE exhibited mood-congruent recall, but high-SE participants did not. In fact, the more negative high-SE participants felt, the more positive were their cognitions (mood-incongruent recall). This pattern was replicated in 3 experiments that included variations in the negative mood inductions and the type of information that was generated or retrieved. Our results suggest a strong link between SE and the regulation of negative emotional states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory Accessibility, Mood Regulation, and Dysphoria: Difficulties in Repairing Sad Mood With Happy Memories?

Recent studies have suggested that mood-incongruency effects are due to mood-regulatory processes, in which people retrieve positive memories to repair negative moods. In Study 1, the authors investigated whether dysphoria influences the accessibility of autobiographical memories following a positive or a negative mood induction combined with subsequent rumination or distraction. The results showed a mood-repair effect for nondysphoric but not for dysphoric participants following rumination. In Study 2, participants were asked to either distract themselves or to recall positive autobiographical memories after a negative mood induction. Whereas nondysphoric participants' mood improved under both conditions, dysphoric participants' mood improved only after distraction. These results suggest that dysphoria is associated with a reduced ability to use mood-incongruent recall to repair sad moods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression, self-focused attention, and the negative memory bias.

On the basis of self-regulatory perseveration theory, we hypothesized that the negative memory bias commonly found among depressed people is mediated by excess levels of self-focused attention and thus can be reduced by preventing depressed people from focusing on themselves. In Experiment 1, nondepressed and subclinically depressed college students were induced to either focus on themselves or externally and then to recall 10 events that had happened to themselves during the previous 2 weeks. Consistent with our hypotheses, events recalled by depressed Ss were more negative than events recalled by nondepressed Ss under conditions of self-focus but not under conditions of external focus. We conducted Experiment 2 to determine whether this effect was specific to self-referent events or generalizable to events that happened to other people. Experiment 2's findings replicated the previous findings for self-referent events but showed a different pattern for recall of events that happened to others, suggesting that self-focus reduces the negative memory bias among depressed individuals by deactivating their self-schemas. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How would it feel if...? Mood as input to a role fulfillment evaluation process.

Most theoretical models of the relation between mood and evaluation suggest that people in positive moods tend to render more favorable evaluations than people in negative moods. If moods operate as input to a role fulfillment evaluation process, however, then mood-congruent evaluations are not inevitable, even when people incorporate their moods into their evaluations. Instead, the more people experience the feelings (negative or positive) they could expect to feel if the target had fulfilled its role (e.g., a particularly heart-wrenching sad story or an especially funny comedy), the more favorably people should evaluate the target. Three experiments supported this hypothesis. Only the mood-as-input model seems capable of accounting for the results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Focus of attention mediates the impact of negative affect on altruism.

An experiment with 36 undergraduates tested whether the relationship between negative affect and altruism is mediated by focus of attention. Ss were asked to imagine that a close friend was terminally ill. They were told to attend either to their own reactions or to the reactions of the dying friend. Ss in these conditions did not differ in self-reported negative mood. Moreover, they were "sadder" than Ss in a control condition, who imagined a nontragic event. When subsequently given the opportunity to be anonymous altruists, the other-focused Ss were significantly more helpful than either the self-focused or control Ss. It is suggested that negative moods facilitate altruism among people who are attending to the problems of others, but not among people who attend to their own needs, concerns, and losses. The ethical implications of experiments inducing powerful negative affects are discussed. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-perpetuating properties of dysphoric rumination.

Hypotheses about the self-perpetuating properties of ruminative responses to depressed mood were tested in 2 laboratory studies and 2 questionnaire studies with dysphoric and nondysphoric Ss. Studies 1 and 2 supported the hypothesis that dysphorics induced to engage in self-focused rumination would report reduced willingness to engage in pleasant, distracting activities that could lift their moods, even if they believed they would enjoy such activities. Studies 3 and 4 confirmed the hypothesis that dysphorics induced to ruminate in response to their moods would feel they were gaining insight into their problems and their emotions. Therefore, they might have avoided distraction because they believed it would interfere with their efforts to understand themselves. Depressed mood alone, in the absence of rumination, was not associated with either lower willingness to participate in distractions or an enhanced sense of insightfulness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On feeling good and getting your way: Mood effects on negotiator cognition and bargaining strategies.

Are happy people more likely to be cooperative and successful negotiators? On the basis of the Affect Infusion Model (AIM; Forgas, 1995a), Experiment 1 predicted and found that both good and bad moods had a significant mood-congruent effect on people's thoughts and plans, and on their negotiation strategies and outcomes in both interpersonal and intergroup bargaining. Experiment 2 replicated these results and also showed that mood effects were reduced for persons more likely to adopt motivated processing strategies (scoring high on machiavellianism and need for approval). Experiment 3 confirmed these effects and demonstrated that the mood of the opposition also produced more mood-congruent bargaining strategies and outcomes. The results are discussed in terms of affect priming influences on interpersonal behaviors, and the implications of these findings for reallife cognitive tasks and bargaining encounters are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression, self-focused attention, and expectancies for positive and negative future life events for self and others.

In two studies, we examined depressed and nondepressed persons' judgments of the probability of future positive and negative life events occurring to themselves and to others. Study 1 demonstrated that depressed subjects were generally less optimistic than their nondepressed counterparts: Although nondepressed subjects rated positive events as more likely to happen to themselves than negative events, depressed subjects did not. In addition, relative to nondepressed subjects, depressed subjects rated positive events as less likely to occur to themselves and more likely to occur to others and negative events as more likely to occur to both self and others. Study 2 investigated the role that differential levels of self-focused attention might play in mediating these differences. On the basis of prior findings that depressed persons generally engage in higher levels of self-focus than nondepressed persons do and the notion that self-focus activates one's self-schema, we hypothesized that inducing depressed subjects to focus externally would attenuate their pessimistic tendencies. Data from Study 2 supported the hypothesis that high levels of self-focus partially mediate depressive pessimism: Whereas self-focused depressed subjects were more pessimistic than nondepressed subjects, externally focused depressed subjects were not. The role of attentional focus in maintaining these and other depressive pessimistic tendencies was discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clearing the mind: A working memory model of distraction from negative mood.

The present research examined whether and how loading working memory can attenuate negative mood. In three experiments, participants were exposed to neutral, weakly negative, or strongly negative pictures followed by a task and a mood scale. Working memory demands were varied by manipulating task presence (Study 1), complexity (Study 2), and predictability (Study 3). Participants in all three experiments reported less negative moods in negative trials with high compared to low working memory demand. Working memory demands did not affect mood in the neutral trials. When working memory demands were high, participants no longer reported more negative moods in response to strongly negative pictures than to weakly negative pictures. These findings suggest that loading working memory prevents mood-congruent processing, and thereby promotes distraction from negative moods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood and memory under natural conditions: Evidence for mood incongruent recall.

The effect of mood on memory was studied under natural conditions in 2 field quasi-experiments. In both, Ss in happy moods recalled autobiographical memories that were more negative than were memories recalled by subjects in bad moods, a phenomenon termed mood incongruent recall. Three subsequent laboratory experiments are reported that suggest that mood incongruent recall is a reliable phenomenon, occurring when subjects are unaware that their moods are relevant to the experiment. Mood incongruent recall is hypothesized to be related to mood regulation. The implications of these findings for the relation between mood and memory, for mood congruent recall, for laboratory mood inductions, and for self-regulation of mood and depression are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of personal goals on self-regulation processes elicited by daily negative events.

A diary study examined the impact of personal goals on appraisals, self-regulatory processes, and affect in response to daily negative events. Participants, who were pretested on a goal inventory, completed a diary in which they described and rated the most bothersome event twice each day for 2 weeks. Events were later coded for goal relevance and self-focused attention. Goal-related events were appraised as more serious and personally important, were associated with more negative moods during the rating period, and elicited stronger self-regulatory responses (higher levels of self-focused attention, self-concept confusion, and rumination). The relation between goal relevance and mood was mediated by the self-regulatory variables. Nomothetic and idiographic relations among the diary variables (ignoring goal relevance) also implicated self-regulatory processes in responding to negative events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does affect induce self-focused attention?

Despite growing evidence that depression is linked with self-focused attention, little is known about how depressed individuals become self-focused or, more generally, about what arouses self-focus in everyday life. Two experiments examined the hypothesis that affect itself induces self-focused attention. In Experiment 1, moods were manipulated with an imagination mood-induction procedure. Sad-induction Ss became higher in self-focus than did neutral-induction Ss. Experiment 2 replicated this effect for sad moods by means of a musical mood-induction procedure and different measures of self-focus. However, Experiment 2 failed to support the hypothesis that happy moods induce self-focus. The results have implications for mood-induction research, self-focused attention, and recent models of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The 120-S minute: using analysis of work activity to prevent psychological distress among elementary school teachers

To avoid exposure to unpleasant or unwanted emotional material, some people may distract themselves by summoning up pleasant thoughts such as happy memories. Manipulation of negative affect might therefore result in heightened accessibility of pleasant thoughts and memories, contrary to hypotheses of mood-congruent recall. In Experiment 1, repressors were faster to recall happy memories after watching an unpleasant film than after watching a neutral film. Nonrepressors showed the opposite effect (i.e., mood-congruent memory). In Experiment 2, after an unpleasant film, repressors were faster to recall a happy memory than to recall a sad memory. In Experiment 3, repressors spontaneously generated pleasant thoughts after watching an unpleasant film, whereas nonrepressors did not. Thus, repressors apparently cope with exposure to negative affective material by accessing pleasant thoughts. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive defenses against emotional distress and the associative structure of repression.     

Mood-induced self-focused attention.

The influence of mood on self-focused attention was explored in 2 experiments involving the induction of moods in the laboratory. Exp 1 tested the hypothesis that mood states, whether pleasant or unpleasant, induce self-focused attention. This hypothesis was supported using a sentence completion task as the measure of self focus. Exp 2 replicated Exp 1 results using a measure of self-complexity as an index of self-focus. These experiments provide support for a model of affect–action sequences the first step of which entails the turning of attention toward the self in response to the arousal of affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood dependent memory for events of the personal past.

Previous research on mood dependent memory (MDM) suggests that the more one must rely on internal resources, rather than on external aids, to generate both the target events and the cues required for their retrieval, the more likely is one's memory for these events to be mood dependent. To instantiate this "do-it-yourself" principle, 3 experiments were conducted in which Ss experiencing either a pleasant or an unpleasant mood generated autobiographical events in response to neutral nouns. Subsequently, Ss were tested for event free recall while in the same or the alternative mood state. All 3 studies showed MDM, such that the likelihood of recalling an event generated 2 or 3 days ago was higher when generation and recall moods matched than when they mismatched. Prospects for future research aimed at elucidating and extending these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repressive coping: Distraction using pleasant thoughts and memories.

To avoid exposure to unpleasant or unwanted emotional material, some people may distract themselves by summoning up pleasant thoughts such as happy memories. Manipulation of negative affect might therefore result in heightened accessibility of pleasant thoughts and memories, contrary to hypotheses of mood-congruent recall. In Experiment 1, repressors were faster to recall happy memories after watching an unpleasant film than after watching a neutral film. Nonrepressors showed the opposite effect (i.e., mood-congruent memory). In Experiment 2, after an unpleasant film, repressors were faster to recall a happy memory than to recall a sad memory. In Experiment 3, repressors spontaneously generated pleasant thoughts after watching an unpleasant film, whereas nonrepressors did not. Thus, repressors apparently cope with exposure to negative affective material by accessing pleasant thoughts. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive defenses against emotional distress and the associative structure of repression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Focus of attention in the treatment of depression.

Current outcome studies indicate that cognitive-behavioral approaches are significantly more effective than nondirective strategies in treating depression. By reconceptualizing depression as an attentional deficit in self-focused attention, the present author provides an explanation for the nonspecific superiority of cognitive-behavioral strategies over nondirective techniques. It is suggested that reflection of affect may heighten self-awareness to detrimental levels in depressed patients already predisposed toward an internal (self) focus of attention. The state of self-focused attention is discussed in terms of its relationship to depression. Relevant research and clinical evidence support the hypothesis that an effective ingredient in treating depression lies in the negative reinforcement inherent in realigning client attention away from negative affect. Client–therapist interactions are discussed in relation to focus of attention. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)