SocialJudgment5 2013

Example of Mood & Memory

(a) You meet Sarah while in good mood (b) You meet Suzy while in bad mood What are the following examples of? 1. You remember mostly positive information about Sarah, and negative information about Suzy = mood congruent 2. Later, you're in a happy mood. The person who comes to mind is Sarah. = mood dependent

Mood and the Correspondence Bias [fundamental attribution] (Forgas, 1998)

* Participants primed: received positive, negative, or no feedback *Read essays on topical issues - Freely chosen vs. not chosen by the author -subjects had to evaluate true attitude of author -to judge true attitude, need to take into account if they chose freely or not. If someone chose freely to write the essay on capital punishment, they most likely endorse it *Compared to neutral moods: - HAPPY moods INCREASE the correspondence bias (moods have a signalling function, and will influence strategies) -sad moods decrease the correspondence bias *Sad participants recalled significantly more information than happy participants *Negative moods trigger systematic and careful processing

Affect and Cognition

*Affect: Our current emotions and moods -A key difference: moods do not usually have an immediate or salient cause *Affect and cognition are reciprocally related -thought shapes feelings -feelings shape thought *Affect can influence -memory -judgments/inferences -information processing strategies

Summary: Mood Influences

*Affective states can influence the content and processes of cognition -information we recall -inferences we draw -information processing strategies *Happy moods appear to increase judgmental errors, suggesting that positive mood increases reliance on heuristics

Mood and Stereotyping (Bodenhausen et al, 1994) Results

*Happy participants relied on stereotypes, whereas neutral participants based judgments on the evidence provided. - happy mood, influenced by stereotypes - more likely to think latino was guilty -evidence of happy mood promoting heuristics (i.e. stereotypes)

What was Bower's theory of Mood as a Source of Priming?

*Mood leads to retrieval of mood-congruent concepts and memories - happy --> activation of people, objects, or events associated with happiness (serves as a filter =mostly remember positive info about sarah) - sad --> activation of people, objects, or events associated with sadness *How does this influence judgment? -A different information base is used when in sad vs. happy mood (we rely on readily available info) -Mood can also cloud interpretation: Is Donald reckless or adventurous?

Mood and Stereotyping (Bodenhausen et al, 1994) Method

*Participants wrote about: -happy event vs. daily activities *Read a description about an assault case: -Juan Garcia vs. John Garner *Reported likelihood of student's guilt

What was RESULTS of Schwarz & Clore (1983) study on feelings as information?

*People use feelings, unless specifically cued to think that feelings may not be appropriate *you can reduce mood congruence by reminding people about weather -no sig. effect on weather reminder on sunny days -but on rainy days, there is an affect by weather reminder, they rate their life satisfaction relatively high -> able to attribute weather to sad mood and as a result their current mood doesn't affect their judgement *the reason why you don't get an effect for sunny days because people only look for explanations when it is not the default (default is that people feel pretty satisfied with life) --> there is a need to seek an explanation for negative mood

Mood and Judgments: Feelings as Information (Schwarz & Clore, 1983)

*We may use our mood as a direct source of information (mood can have an impact on judgment that doesn't rely on memory i.e. mood congruence) *When you encounter something or someone, you ask "How do I feel about it?", and you use your existing affective state to construct a response *Potential source of error, however, when mood is irrelevant to target of judgment *Impact of affective states on judgment depends on perceived information value -If current feelings are attributed to a source that is irrelevant to the target of evaluation, feelings should not influence the evaluative judgment (i.e. you might like sarah because you got a piece of chocolate and feel in a good mood) *In contrast, the affect priming model (Bower) says that informational value should not matter (the reason why i feel good is the chocolate - Bower says it doesn't matter, as it will activate memories and display mood congruent judgements)  Whether feelings influence judgment depends only on the concepts retrieved from memory

What was METHOD of Schwarz & Clore (1983) study on feelings as information?

*manipulated mood to see whether mood influences judgement -interested in how people evaluate their lives *"All things considered, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?" -Asked people either on sunny or rainy weekends -Half also asked at the beginning: "By the way, how's the weather down there?"

Mood as a Source of Priming: Affect Priming Model (Bower, 1981)

*mood is a source of priming: -when we experience a particular mood/emotion, it activates concepts in memories that are associated with those moods -when emotion node is activated, when some one is a happy mood, activation spreads thru out network -> recall memories of happy events

Mood and Information Processing Strategies: Signalling Function of Affect (Schwarz, 1990)

*moods can also influence the processing strategies we adopt -> our current moods provide info about the current situation, and tell us how to respond *Negative state: current situation is problematic and something must be done -may promote use of systematic, detail-oriented info processing *Positive state: current situation is safe and no scrutiny of the environment is necessary -may promote use of heuristics

Mood and Memory

Our mood affects our memories: (a)Mood-congruent memory: -recall memories that are congruent with current mood (e.g. if you are in a positive mood, you will remember positive things) -moods serve as a filter (moods determine what info is noticed, and info that is consistent with mood goes into LTM) (b)Mood-dependent memory: -fit between mood at retrieval and mood at encoding (e.g. if you are in a positive mood when you encounter something, and later when are in a positive mood, you will recall it) -moods serve as a retrieval cue (prompts you to recall info that is consistent with your current mood)