The association between perceptions of daily experiences and self- and spouse-rated mood

Abstract A recent study by L. P. Rehm ( Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 1978 , 46 , 854–859) reported strong associations between the daily report of pleasant and unpleasant events and a global mood rating. This study examined desirable and undesirable events in an effort to replicate and extend Rehm's work by having 26 married couples complete a daily event and mood checklist about husbands for 14 consecutive days. The group averaging strategy generally used to describe event-mood correlations was compared to a tabulation of significant individual correlations. The observed correlations were consistent with a previous study of pleasant events by P. M. Lewinsohn and M. Graf ( Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 1973 , 41 , 261–268) and a study of unpleasant events by P. M. Lewinsohn and J. Talkington ( Applied Psychological Measurement , 1979 , 3 , 83–101), yet were considerably smaller than those reported by Rehm. Wives' ratings of their husbands' mood revealed the same relationship with experiences as did husbands' self-rated mood. Differences in the populations studied and the event and mood assessments between our study and Rehm's could account for this finding. A tabulation approach to the data showed that few subjects actually achieved statistically significant associations in contrast to the group approach which indicated small associations across all subjects.

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