Mood, self-efficacy, and performance standards: Lower moods induce higher standards for performance.

Examined the effects of induced mood on personal standards for performance and judgments of one's performance capabilities, or self-efficacy judgments. Three experiments involving 208 undergraduates were conducted. In Exp 1, standards and self-efficacy judgments were assessed on common social and academic tasks. In Exp 2, these variables were assessed on 2 novel tasks. In both experiments, negative mood induced higher standards for performance. Induced mood had no effect on perceived self-efficacy. Negative mood Ss thus held minimal standards for performance that significantly exceeded the levels of performance they judged they actually could attain. Exp 3 provided support for the hypothesis that negative mood raises standards by lowering evaluations of prospective outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)