Incongruent effects of sad mood on self‐ conception valence: It's a matter of time

Abstract

AbstractA new hypothesis is proposed to account for the relation between sad mood and self‐ conception valence, the ‘first, congruency; then, incongruency’ hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, sad mood initially influences the valence of open‐ended self‐descriptions in a mood‐congruent fashion, but after a short period of time self‐descriptions become mood‐incongruent. Subjects were placed into a sad, neutral, or happy mood state, and were subsequently asked to freely describe themselves in writing. The results were consistent with the hypothesis. Sad mood affected the valence of the first half of self‐descriptions in a congruent manner, but affected the valence of the second half of self‐descriptions in an incongruent manner That is, with the passage of time sad mood led to increasingly positive self‐descriptions (i.e. equally positive as neutral mood did). Implications of the findings are discussed.