Work

The effect of mental progression on mood.

Year: 2011

Type: article

Abstract: Mood affects the way people think. But can the way people think affect their mood? In the present investigation, we examined this promising link by testing whether mood is influenced by the presence or absence of associative progression by manipulating the scope of participants' information processing and measuring their subsequent mood. In agreement with our hypothesis, processing that involved associative progression was associated with relatively better moods than processing that was restricted to a single topic (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that conceptual plurality alone accounted for these mood differences; results converge with the view that mood is affected by the degree to which thoughts advance conceptually.

Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology General

DOI: 10.1037/a0025035

Authors: Malia F. Mason, Moshe Bar

Institutions: Columbia University, Harvard University

Language: English

Topic: Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Awards: A Cognitive Neuroscience Framework for Understanding and Treating Mood Disorders, Contextual Predictions Facilitate Visual Cognition