Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20424
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: Journal Article
Bless H, Schwarz N, Clore GL, Golisano V, Rabe C, Wölk M.
Mood and the use of scripts: does a happy mood really lead to mindlessness?
J Pers Soc Psychol 1996 Oct; 71:(4):665-79
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/71/4/665/
Abstract:
The authors tested whether happy moods increase, and sad moods decrease, reliance on general knowledge structures. Participants in happy, neutral, or sad moods listened to a “going-out-for-dinner” story. Happy participants made more intrusion errors in recognition than did sad participants, with neutral mood participants falling in between (Experiments 1 and 2). Happy participants outperformed sad ones when they performed a secondary task while listening to the story (Experiment 2), but only when the amount of script-inconsistent information was small (Experiment 3). This pattern of findings indicates higher reliance on general knowledge structures under happy rather than sad moods. It is incompatible with the assumption that happy moods decrease either cognitive capacity or processing motivation in general, which would predict impaired secondary-task performance.
Keywords:
Attention*
Cognition*
Female
Happiness*
Humans
Male
Mental Recall
Motivation*
Problem Solving
Social Perception*
