Lecture 8 - Mood Flashcards
What is mood?
Brown/Astell (2012): mood is affective states of mind that underlie our subjective mental life (mood overlaps with emotion)
How do common participants conceptually separate mood/emotion?
Anatomy: E – related to heart, M – related to mind
Experience: E – felt, M – thought
Physiology: E – distinct physiological patterning, M – no distinct physiological patterning
Cause: E – caused by specific event/object, M – cause less well-defined
Awareness of Cause: E – individual is aware, M – individual may be unaware
etc.
What are limitations of current mood/emotion separation?
Clear conceptual distinction but:
Some criteria require testing
Interactions?
Not universally agreed
Terminology used inconsistently in literature (eg. Emotional states, physiological states, behavioural signals?)
What are mood traits?
Individuals show dispositions of mood, reflect capacity/tendency to experience mood states
Mood moderately stable over time
Characteristic patterns of variability of mood states (some people more stable than others)
How is mood structured?
Watson/Tellegen (1985): reviewed previous factor analysis studies of mood adjective ratings, found 2 orthogonal dimensions – positive affect (PA) + negative affect (NA)
PA: high – active, elated, excited, low – drowsy, sleepy, sluggish
NA: high – distressed, fearful, nervous, low – calm, placid, relaxed
How does co-occurrence of positive/negative mood happen?
Larsen et al. (2001): examined co-activation of happiness/sadness
189 participants + emotional state ratings before/after watching tragic comedy film
44% of participants reported feeling happy + sad at the same time –> bittersweet feelings (also seen on dorm move out days/graduation)
Co-activations of positive/negative feelings is possible but not common
What did Matthew/Jones/Chamberlain find about 3D model of mood?
Factor analysed responses to 48 item ‘University of Wales Institute of Science/Technology Mood Adjective Checklist’ (3D model of mood)
Tense Arousal (Anxious – Calm), Energetic Arousal (Active – Idle), Hedonic Tone (Pleased – Low-spirited)
Hedonic tone modestly associated with arousal scales
What did Diener find about happiness?
‘Happiness’ = Positive affect – negative affect
How are mood traits/states assessed?
Most methods of assessing individual mood diffs involve retrospective judgements (eg. How happy did you feel yesterday?) –> subject to biases associated w/ retrospective judgments (eg. Current mood, most extreme mood state, mood state at end, beliefs/stereotypes)
What are cultural views of moods?
Typical cultural view: low mood on Monday and high mood on Friday
What did Areni/Burger find about cultural view of mood?
Do beliefs about typical moods fit w/ cultural stereotypes about days of the week? –> 202 participants in online study, full-time employment
People rated best moods on Friday evening/Sat morning, worst on Mon morning/evening
Study 2 (2008): 350 participants, 8 day study, asked mood “right now” on each day + retrospectively at end
Less variation in mood over week than people expect
Little evidence that mood stereotypes reflect real moods
For Mondays: mood stereotypes better predictor of remembered mood than actual moods were
What are the effects of current mood on thoughts as a whole?
Schwartz/Clore (1983): telephone interview w/ participants on sunny/rainy days
How happy do you feel at this moment? –> mean 7.5 sunny, 5.4 rainy
How happy do you feel about life as a whole? –> mean 7.43 sunny, 5 rainy
What is Peak-End theory?
Redelmeier/Kahneman (1996): Patients retrospective ratings strongly influenced by Peak/End experiences
Lower correlations with duration of experiences (duration neglect)
Chajut et al. (2014): 324 pregnant women recruited on entering delivery dept. - momentary pain reports every 20 minutes until birth
Average pain: 37.61, Peak pain: 89.16, End pain: 54.23, Average of Peak/End: 71.70
Remembered pain: 2 days – 72.72, 2 months – 68.86
Average of peak/end ratings stronger predictors of remembered pain ratings than actual average levels experienced
What are asymmetries in recall of positive/negative affect?
Negative influenced more by peak, positive by end
What are contemporaneous mood assessments?
Collected contemporaneously with experience (how happy do you feel right now?)
Accurate snapshot of mood state, free of memory related cognitive biases, temporal precision
HOWEVER, single snapshot only, interferes w/ everyday activities, tells nothing about people’s memories of experiences (b/c memory influences future behaviour, inform sense of wellbeing, contribute to sense of who we are)
