Moderators of mood-congruent encoding: Self-/other-reference and affirmative/nonaffirmative judgement

Abstract

An experiment investigated mood-congruent encoding (MCE) of personal information about the self and a parent, and identified two moderators of MCE: self-/other-reference, and affirmative/nonaffirmative judgement. More specifically, the results indicated that elated mood facilitated encoding of affirmatively rated positive material under conditions of both self- and other-reference, whereas depressed mood facilitated encoding of affirmatively rated negative material under conditions of self-reference only. Material that had received non affirmative ratings did not evidence MCE. A similar pattern of mood-congruent judgement (MCJ) also occurred, elated mood increasing affirmative judgements of both self- and other-referent positive material, and depressed mood increasing affirmative judgements of self- but not other-referent negative material. Inhibitory effects characterised neither MCE nor MU: Elated mood did not decrease recall or judgements of negative material, and depressed mood did not decrease recall or judgements of positive material. To explain the results, the discussion presents a cognitive structure/process account that emphasises the role of selective elaboration, and outlines future research that jointly considers MCE and MCJ.