The influence of mood-congruent expectancies on social judgments and the processing of judgment-relevant information

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The focus of the planned project is on the effects of moods on processing of social information and social judgments. The theoretical background is a new mood-congruent expectancies approach (MCA; Ziegler, 2010). The relevance of this approach shall be tested with reference to a number of extant approaches and pertaining findings. According to the MCA, people in both positive and negative mood may process social information more extensively when mood-congruent positive or negative expectations, respectively, are disconfirmed (vs. confirmed). Different from extant approaches, the MCA thus holds that individuals in both moods are flexible in regard to processing effort, that negative mood does not only lead to less extensive processing when an influence attempt is perceived as illegitimate, that positive mood does not only lead to more extensive processing of negative information when such information is self-relevant, and that positive information is processed extensively in negative mood not only because it is mood-elevating. Rather, mood effects on processing are assumed to be context-dependent, in particular driven by the presumably fundamental cognitive mechanism of mood-based expectancies. Other, for instance motivational factors (mood management, long-term goals) may strengthen, weaken, or override effects of this cognitive mechanism. The planned experiments are guided by a number of goals. First, they aim to examine whether less extensive processing given mood-congruent information (as predicted by the MCA) leads to better performance on a secondary task and higher reliance on general knowledge structures in both moods. Second, further studies test under which circumstances judgments are affected by consensus information in both moods. Third, it will be examined whether the MCA may provide an alternative explanation for findings based on the mood-as-input approach or whether each of the mechanisms postulated by the two approaches emerges under specific circumstances. Finally, studies will examine the role of mood-based expectancies for findings based on the mood-as-a-resource approach, and the role of the salience of mood-based expectancies for processing in positive and negative mood.