Mood

Mood and Emotion

conceptual separation

folk psychology perspective = members with no knownedge should be able to distinguish between these two concepts as we are experts through experience

comparison with academic literature

common distinctions

anatomy

related to the mind

experience

emotion is felt

mood is thought

related to the heart

physiology

E = distinct physiological patterns

M = no distinct physiological pattern

cause

E = caused by specific event/object

M = less well defined cause

awareness of cause

E = individual is aware

M = individual may be unaware

intentionality

E = about something

M = not about anything particular

clarity

E = clearly defined

M = diffuse/nebulous

control

E = not controllable

M = controllable

disp;ay

E = displayed

M = not displayed

Structure of Mood

mood traits

dispositions of mood

reflect capacity and tendency to experience mood states

mood is moderately stable overtime (costa et al., 1987)

characteristic patterns of variability of mood states e.g. some p's have extreme highs and lows whereas some are more stable (mcconville & cooper, 1992)

structure of mood (watson & tellegen, 1985)

reviewed previous FA studies of mood adjective ratings

found 2 at least partly orthogonal dimensions

positive affect

high = active, elated, excited

low = drowsy, sleepy, sluggish

negative affect

high = distressed, fearful, nervous

low = calm placid, relaxed

co-occurrence of positive and negative mood (larsen et al., 2001)

looked at happiness and sadness

189 p's recorded emotional state before and after watching tragic comedy

evidence of co-activation labelled as bittersweetness

similar feelings to graduating or moving out of a dorm

conrad et al. (2019) found p's that listen to songs on repeat reflect bittersweetness (this is called extreme relistening)

3 dimensional model of mood (mattew et al., 1990)

FA responses to 48 item UMACL

dimensions

tense arousal ranges from anxious to calm (negative affect)

energetic arousal ranging from active to sleepy (positive affect)

hedonic tone ranges from pleased/happy to low spirited/sad

tense and energetic arousal closely related to arousal scales whereas hedonic tone only has modest association with arousal scales

diener (2000) describes happiness as positive affect - negative affect

The Assessment of Mood

measures of mood

retrospective

most common method

rely on p's to reflect back to a previous point in time and remember mood

can range from day, week, month or years

biases

current mood

most extreme mood

mood at the end

beliefs, stereotypes and expectations of mood patterns

contemporaneous

collected at the time of the experience

benefits

limitations

accurate snapshot of mood state

free of memory related cognitive biases

temportal precision

single snapshot only

uses mobile technology which may interfere with daily activities which biases mood

doesn't explain memories of mood

cultural mood stereotypes (areni & burger, 2008)

202 p's all in full time employment

p's beliefs about mood was influenced by the stereotype of a working week

best mood = friday evening and saturday mornings

worst mood = moday morning and evening

predictive validity of remembered mood

asked p's to record contemporaneous mood assessment days 1-7 then on day 8 record retrosepctive mood assessment for the week

little evidence that mood stereotypes reflected real moods

for mondays: mood stereotypes were a better predictor of remembered mood than actual moods were

p's beliefs about mood were a better predictor than their actual mood

effects of current mood (schwartz & clore, 1983)

telephone interview with p's on sunny or rainy days

weather influenced p's global life happiness

peak end theory

redelmeier & kahneman, 1996

demonstrated duration neglect

p's don't account the length of the procedure

focus instead on the overall pain or pain at the end

p's retrospective ratings were strongly influenced by peak and end experience

chajut et al. (2014)

324 pregnant women recruited on entering a delivery department

contemporaneous pain reports every 20mins till birth

retrospective pain ratings at 2 days or months later

found average of peak and end pain ratings were strong predictors of remembered pain rating than actual average levels of pain experiences

ganzach and yaor (2019)

asymmetries in recall of positive and negative events

negative influenced by more peak experiences

positive influenced more by end experiences