mood Flashcards
What is the difference between mood traits and states?
Mood traits are dispositions of mood that reflect one’s capacity and tendency to experience certain mood states. Mood states are temporary emotional experiences.
How can mood be conceptually distinguished from emotion?
mood is often considered to be more stable and pervasive, while emotion tends to be more specific and intense.
What are the criticisms of Beedie, Terry and Lane’s 14 point criteria for the conceptual separation of emotion and mood
Some criteria need further testing to determine how separate they are
Interaction between the two need to be tested – e.g mood state may influence emotional reaction someone has to a stimuli
These criteria are still not universally agreed and
inconsistently used in the literature
Describe the models developed to account for the factorial structure of mood.
Models such as Watson and Tellegen’s two-dimensional model distinguish between Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA). Other models, like Matthews, Jones, and Chamberlain’s three-dimensional model, add an arousal dimension and a hedonic tone to the structure of mood.
Outline Watson and Tellegen’s model of mood structure.
Found 2 orthogonal/independent dimensions which dictate one’s structure of ‘mood’
Positive Affect (PA)
high levels - active, elevated, excited
low levels - drowsy, sleepy, sluggish
Negative Affect (NA)
high levels - distressed, fearful, nervous
low levels - calm, placid, relaxed
According to this model, as the axis are independent, we can experience positive and negative moods at the same time
Provide evidence showing the co-occurrence of positive and negative mood and support for Watson and Tellegen’s model of mood.
Larsen et al – examined the co-occurrence of happiness and sadness.
189 ppt ‘emotional state’ recorded before and after watching ‘Life is Beautiful’.
Evidence of co-activation (44% experiencing) – ‘bittersweetness’
Conrad et al – 16% of songs that people listen to on repeat reflect bittersweet feelings
Outline Matthews, Jones and Chamberlain model of mood structure.
3-dimensional model of mood:
tense arousal: anxious - calm
energetic arousal: active - sleepy
hedonic tone - pleased - gloomy (this dimension relates to the pleasure experienced from the mood, and is associated with the arousal scales).
model concluded that happiness = positive affect - negative affect
Outline the main biases which influence retrospective judgements of mood.
cultural mood stereotypes - beliefs that many societies hold about mood patterns e.g moods being dependent on the day of the week (Monday = sad, Friday = happy), mood stereotypes are better predictor of remembered mood than what actual moods were.
current mood - current moods (which can be altered by something as simple as the weather) influences assessment of mood
peak/end experiences - peak-end Theory – research demonstrates that patients’ retrospective ratings on mood were strongly influenced by Peak and End experiences and duration effect (despite these moments being brief in context, they still heavily influence bias)
Outline two pieces of research research which suggest that judgements of mood are influenced by peak/end experiences.
- people’s retrospective ratings of pain were influenced by peak (most intense pain) and end (how they felt at the end) experiences - women in labour research: retrospective pain reported 2 weeks/2 months later were higher than what was actually experienced, peak and end pain ratings were stronger predictors of remembered pain ratings than actual average levels of pain experienced
- Ganzach et al – found that negative feelings influenced more by peak experiences, whilst positive feelings more influenced by end experiences
What factors contribute to individual differences in mood?
Individual differences in mood can be influenced by both dispositional mood traits and patterns of mood variability, with previous mood states often being a better predictor of future mood than environmental circumstances.
Outline the advantages and disadvantages of contemporaneous mood assessments.
Positives
- accurate snapshot
- free of memory related cognitive bias
- temporal precision
Negatives
- still some cognitive biases
- interferes with everyday activities
- unrepresentative of people’s memories of their experiences (retrospective assessments - tells us how mood memories influence future behaviour, inform our well being/how we perceive our global well being and contribute to a sense of who we are)
Give examples of contemporaneous mood assessments.
Momentary Mood Assessment
Ecological Momentary Assessment
Experience Sampling Methodology
