Effects of Moods on Thoughts About Helping, Attraction and Information Acquisition

Past research has demonstrated that positive moods increase helping, attraction toward others, and peoples' willingness to pick up a free brochure. Negative moods have been shown to have mixed effects on helping and to decrease attraction. It has been suggested by Isen (1975), that such effects are mediated by the impact of feelings on the accessibility of mood congruent thoughts. In an effort to find support for this suggestion, the present study tested the hypothesis that mood states would influence the production of mood congruent thoughts in response to situations in which helping, attraction toward another, or acquisition of information might take place. Subjects experienced a positive, negative, or no mood induction. Then they imagined themselves in situations in which helping was possible, in which they were meeting a blind date, and in which free brochures were being distributed. They gave free associations to each situation. Subjects who were induced to feel good had significantly more positive first affective associations to situations in which it was possible to help and to meeting a blind date than did subjects in the control or negative mood conditions. Subjects who were induced to feel bad had more negative first affective associations to all three situations than did other subjects, but these differences were not significant.