Happy Participants Research Articles

Affective states, familiarity and music selection: power of familiarity

This study is aimed to examine the influence of familiarity of media contents (music) and affective states (sad vs. happy) on music selection. Based on the previous studies on mood and selective exposure, it was assumed that both sad and happy individuals will prefer to listen to low energetic–joyful (sad) music over the high energetic–joyful music. However, it was predicted that unfamiliarity of the music will prevent such preference tendency for sad people but in some degree it will incite curiosity of happy people. The results confirmed that the familiarity of the music is more important factor in music selection than the current sad or happy feelings. However, the happy participants showed similarly low preference for the unfamiliar music as the sad participants did. Unexpectedly, the unfamiliar/low energetic–joyful music provided sad participants with happy and energetic affects. The familiar/high energetic–joyful music enjoyed more but both types of music were favourably rated.

Incidental moods, source likeability, and persuasion: Liking motivates message elaboration in happy people

Happy people often fail to elaborate on persuasive arguments, while people in sad moods tend to scrutinise messages in greater detail. According to some motivational accounts, however, happy people will elaborate a message if they believe it might maintain their positive mood. The present research extends this reasoning by demonstrating that happy people will elaborate arguments from message presenters that convey positive hedonic attributes (i.e., source likeability). In a pilot study, we show that happy people believe persuasive messages from a likeable source will be mood maintaining. The results of Study 1 demonstrate that these expectancies have important message-processing implications. In Study 1, sad participants elaborated arguments from both likeable and dislikeable sources, while happy participants only elaborated arguments from a likeable source. Consistent with motivational explanation of these effects, in Study 2, happy participants elaborated arguments from a likeable source when not distracted, but used likeability as a heuristic when distracted with a cognitive-load manipulation. Implications of these results for understanding the effects of mood on processing strategy, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Of Sad Men and Dark Comedies: Mood and Gender Effects on Entertainment Media Preferences

Although traditional mood management theory suggests we use media to deflect sad moods and maintain good moods, various research findings reflect a more complex picture. The present study took a mixed-method, nuanced approach to basic mood management questions and investigated both open and close-ended media preferences among college students (N = 157) immediately following a positive or negative mood induction. Results show that sad (vs. happy) participants showed a preference for viewing a dark comedy or a social drama, whereas happy (vs. sad) participants showed a preference for viewing a slapstick comedy or an action adventure. Women (vs. men) showed an increased preference for romantic genres regardless of mood, whereas men showed a preference for action, suspense, and dark comedy genres. An interaction between gender and mood also emerged; sad men in particular showed a preference for dark comedies. Results are discussed in light of the emotional gratifications that mood-reflecting media may afford men and women.

Effectiveness of promotional premiums: The moderating role of affective state in different contexts

AbstractThis research explores the influence of affective state on ad and product judgments for advertising that features promotional offers of high and low price value. Consistent with expectations, Study 1 found that for happy participants, high‐price value premiums generated higher ad believability ratings, which in turn enhanced ad and brand attitudes. For sad participants, however, the positive effects of high‐price value premiums were attenuated due to message believability discounting. It is proposed that the moderating influence of affective state on responses to ads featuring premiums should be more likely to emerge when attention to premiums is high, as in situations where ads feature less important product attributes or when consumers plan to purchase a product. Study 2 found that the interaction between affective state and premium value was significant when ads featured less important product attributes, but not when they featured important product attributes. Study 3 found that the interaction was significant for participants who intended to purchase the product in the near future, but not for those who did not have purchase intentions. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

International Well-being Index: The Austrian Version

The International Well-being Index (IWI) measures both personal and national well-being. It comprises two subscales: the Personal Well-being Index (PWI) and the National Well-being Index (NWI). The aim of this paper is to test the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of the translated scale in Austria. Convergent validity is assessed using the Scales of Psychological Well-Being, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. In addition, a Visual–Analog Scales capturing “satisfaction with life as a whole” was applied. The participants were 581 students of the Medical University Innsbruck (female: 47.7%; age: 23.2 ± 3.7). Internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) of the IWI was for both scales > .70 (PWI: .85; NWI: .83). The exploratory factor analysis of the IWI identified a 2-factor-structure identical with the two scales of the IWI explaining 54.2% of the variance. The convergent validity hypotheses were confirmed, construct validity was partly confirmed for the PWI being a deconstruction of a first factor called “satisfaction with life” (38.1% explained variance). Happy participants scored higher on the PWI (84.3 ± 7.9 vs. 68.7 ± 13.7; p p

I want to be creative: Exploring the role of hedonic contingency theory in the positive mood-cognitive flexibility link.

Three studies explored the role of hedonic contingency theory as an explanation for the link between positive mood and cognitive flexibility. Study 1 examined the determinants of activity choice for participants in happy, sad, or neutral moods. Consistent with hedonic contingency theory, happy participants weighted potential for creativity as well as the pleasantness of the task more heavily in their preference ratings. In Study 2, participants were given either a neutral or mood-threatening item generation task to perform. Results illustrated that happy participants exhibited greater cognitive flexibility in all cases; when confronted with a potentially mood-threatening task, happy participants were able to creatively transform the task so as to maintain positive mood and interest. Finally, Study 3 manipulated participants' beliefs that moods could or could not be altered. Results replicated the standard positive mood-increased cognitive flexibility effect in the nonmood-freezing condition, but no effects of mood on creativity were found in the mood-freezing condition. These studies indicate that the hedonic contingency theory may be an important contributing mechanism behind the positive mood-cognitive flexibility link.

Mood and Comparative Judgment: Does Mood Influence Everything and Finally Nothing?

Research indicates that mood can influence evaluation of a product when considered in isolation. However, little is known about its influence on comparisons among several alternatives. Four experiments assessed the nature of this influence. When evaluating each option individually upon encountering it, happy participants reported greater preferences for the first encountered option than unhappy participants. When withholding evaluations until having seen all options, however, happy participants reported greater preferences for the last encountered option than unhappy participants. Which comparison strategy was employed, and consequently the impact of mood on preferences, depended on the similarity of choice alternatives in terms of appearance versus descriptive features.

An Experimental Manipulation of Retrospectively Defined Earned and Continuous Attachment Security

Recent longitudinal data suggest that retrospectively defined earned-secures are not more likely than continuous-secures to have been anxiously attached to their mothers in infancy and indeed experience high-quality maternal parenting in childhood. Such findings leave unanswered the question of why earned-secures report negative childhood experiences. On the basis of speculation that earned-security may result from depression-related biases in the recall of early experiences, this report describes the effects of an experimental mood induction on the valence of young adults' (18-25 years) life narratives as assessed in the Adult Attachment Interview. Among secure adults, individuals in a sadness condition were more likely to be classified as earned-secure; happy participants were more likely to be classified as continuous-secure. Induced mood was unrelated to security versus insecurity.

Mood-congruent perceptions of success depend on self-other framing

Research on self-other framing suggests that self-judgements typically neglect information about others and instead use an ambiguous intrapersonal standard, making these judgements susceptible to the influence of mood as predicted by the affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995). Two experiments tested the hypothesis that mood-congruent judgements of personal success occur when these judgements are framed to maintain self-focus but are eliminated when participants first focus on other individuals. In Experiment 1, self-other framing moderated the influence of mood on perceived success for an ambiguous object identification task. Happy participants reported greater perceived success, compared to sad participants, after judging their own success relative to others (self-focused frame) but not after directly judging the success of others (other-focused frame). Experiment 2 replicated these results with students' perceptions of their academic success. These findings suggest that the open, constructive processing accompanying most self-judgements is critical in producing mood-congruent perceptions of personal success.

The Role of Affect on the Search for Global and Specific Target Information

Abstract Two experiments demonstrate that affect influences the extent to which individuals seek global versus specific target information when forming impressions. Experiment 1 relied on natural differences in individuals' moods and found that relatively happy participants were more likely than relatively unhappy ones to seek global before specific target information when forming impressions. Following an experimental mood manipulation, participants in Experiment 2 actively sought global and specific target information in an impression formation task. Overall, happy participants sought relatively more traits than behaviors, whereas sad participants sought relatively more behaviors than traits; however, these differences were significant only for participants exposed to positive trait information. These results suggest that sad participants may have been sensitive to the diagnosticity of the information they chose. The results of both experiments are consistent with the Affect–as–Information model and sug...

Interpreting the Good Life: Growth Memories in the Lives of Mature, Happy People.

In 2 studies, the authors examined autobiographical memories for the presence of 2 growth orientations that were expected to correspond differentially to maturity and well-being, which are considered to be key facets of "the good life" by L. A. King (2001). Mature participants emphasized integrative memories (conceptual integration and learning), whereas happy participants emphasized intrinsic memories (humanistic concerns). Both kinds of growth memories correlated more strongly with eudaimonic than with hedonic measures of well-being. Growth memories were largely independent of Big Five traits in relation to maturity and well-being. Finally, older participants were more likely than younger participants to have greater maturity (marginally) and well-being, but this was in part explained by older participants' greater tendency to have growth memories. The discussion considers the role of growth memories in the intentional cultivation of the good life.

Not all happy people are lazy or stupid: Evidence of systematic processing in happy moods

Two experiments investigated the effects of mood on the use of global trait information in impression formation tasks. Participants in both experiments formed an impression of a target based on traits and a series of behaviors that were both consistent and inconsistent with the traits. In Experiment 1, participants in happy moods, relative to those in unhappy moods, made impression judgments that reflected the evaluative implications of the trait information to a greater extent than the behaviors, regardless of the order in which they received the information. In Experiment 2, both happy and sad participants engaged in systematic processing, as reflected by the recall data, but only happy participants’ recall of target information was significantly biased by the global trait information they received. These findings are consistent with the affect-as-information model in which affective cues influence the extent to which individuals rely on general knowledge and, importantly, are inconsistent with models that posit that happiness results in reduced motivation or ability to process information carefully.

Affect and automatic mood maintenance

The hedonic contingency model (HCM; Wegener & Petty, 1994) states that individuals have learned to seek out positive activities while in a happy mood in order to maintain or elevate that mood. We argue that this tendency may become overlearned and, thus, automated. More specifically, the experience of a happy mood was predicted to automatically activate the mood-maintenance tendency proposed by the HCM. Participants induced into happy, sad, or neutral moods ranked their preferences for future activities that were nonconsciously associated with either a positive or negative valence. Supporting the notion of automatic mood maintenance, happy participants appeared to evaluate the affective qualities of the future activities and base their preferences on this evaluation without realizing that they were doing so. Theoretical implications of this finding are discussed.

Mood and the reliance on the ease of retrieval heuristic.

Four studies investigate the relationship between individuals' mood and their reliance on the ease retrieval heuristic. Happy participants were consistently more likely to rely on the ease of retrieval heuristic, whereas sad participants were more likely to rely on the activated content. Additional analyses indicate that this pattern is not due to a differential recall (Experiment 2) and that happy participants ceased to rely on the ease of retrieval when the diagnosticity of this information was called into question (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 shows that reliance on the ease of retrieval heuristic resulted in faster judgments than reliance on content, with the former but not the latter being a function of the amount of activated information.

Looking Up and Looking Down: Weighting Good and Bad Information in Life Satisfaction Judgments

In two large international studies, the authors examined whether happy and unhappy individuals weighted life domains differently when constructing life satisfaction judgments. In both studies, regression equations predicting life satisfaction showed that there were significant interactions between happiness and a person’s best domain and between happiness and a person’s worst domain, even after controlling for participants’ standing on all other domains. Happy participants weighted their best domains more heavily than did unhappy individuals, whereas unhappy individuals weighted their worst domains more heavily than did happy individuals. Thus, happy and unhappy people used different information when constructing satisfaction judgments.

Effects of Affect, Stereotype Consistency, and Valence of Behavior on Causal Attributions

The authors examined 3 hypotheses about the effects of 2 positive and 2 negative affects on causal attributions. On the basis of cognitive appraisal theories of emotion, they predicted that the grateful and angry participants would attribute causality for like-valenced behaviors to the target more strongly than would the happy and sad participants, respectively. Following an affect-induction procedure, 229 Anglo-American participants read a description of an African American target whose behavior was stereotype consistent or stereotype inconsistent and positive or negative in valence. As predicted, when the behavior was negative, the angry participants attributed it more strongly to the target than did the sad participants. When the behavior was positive, the grateful participants attributed it more strongly to the target than did the happy participants. The importance of distinguishing among affects and considering their multidimensional nature in predicting effects on social judgments is emphasized.

The momentary realist.

Research suggests that people initially take their subjective experience of an object as an accurate reflection of the object's properties, and only subsequently, occasionally, and effortfully consider the possibility that their experience was influenced by extraneous factors. The two studies reported here demonstrate that this is true even when the extraneous factors are the person's own dispositions. Dispositionally happy and unhappy participants were falsely told that they had been subliminally primed with words that might have influenced their moods, and were then asked to identify those words. Dispositionally happy participants were more likely than dispositionally unhappy participants to conclude that they had been primed with positive words, but only when they made these judgments under time pressure. The results are discussed in terms of correction models of human judgment.

Changes in attractiveness of elected, rejected, and precluded alternatives: a comparison of happy and unhappy individuals.

In 3 studies the authors compared the responses of self-rated happy and unhappy students in situations involving choice. In Study 1, high school seniors evaluated colleges after applying for admission and then later after making their selections. Happy students tended to be more satisfied than unhappy ones with the colleges they ultimately chose and those they ultimately rejected, and they more sharply devalued the colleges that rejected them. Studies 2 and 3 dealt with postdecisional consequences of less consequential decisions about fancy desserts. In Study 2, unhappy participants sharply derogated the desserts they rejected or were denied, relative to those selected by or for them, whereas happy participants showed no such derogation. These group differences, moreover, proved to be largely independent of self-esteem and optimism. The design of Study 3 helped explicate underlying mechanisms by inducing both groups to distract themselves or to self-reflect. Doing so eliminated all group differences. Implications of the results for the link between cognitive processes and hedonic consequences are discussed.

Mood Influences on Automatic and Controlled Semantic Priming

Mood effects on automatic and controlled components of semantic priming were examined. After a neutral or positive mood manipulation, subjects underwent two blocks of a priming task. Automatic and strategic priming processes were operationally differentiated by the assumption that automatic priming remains constant during the task, whereas controlled priming develops slowly during the course of the experiment. In the first block the priming effect was greater for happy than for neutral mood participants. In the second block the priming effect was greater for neutral mood than for happy participants. The results confirm the hypothesis of a mood-dependent processing change: During early trials priming is based on automatic processing facilitated by positive mood. This processing mode is later superseded by controlled processes aided by neutral mood.

The Role of Mood in Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects of Performance: Single or Multiple Mechanisms?

Previous research by Hirt, Melton, McDonald, and Harackiewicz (1996) found that mood effects on creativity were not mediated by the same mechanisms as were mood effects on quantitative measures of performance and evaluations of performance, suggesting that mood may simultaneously be working through different processes (dual process view). However, other research (Martin & Stoner, 1996; Sinclair, Mark, & Clore, 1994) supports a single process, mood-as-information model for similar effects of mood on processing. In the present research, we hypothesized that if a single, mood-as-information process accounts for mood effects on both creativity and quantitative performance, then all mood effects should be eliminated if participants are cued that their mood is irrelevant to the task (cf. Schwarz & Clore, 1983). We manipulated participants' moods prior to task performance and presented them with either an enjoyment-based or a performance-based stop rule; half of the participants were cued to the true source of their moods, half were not. Cueing participants eliminated mood effects on quantitative measures of performance (e.g., number generated). However, consistent with a dual-process view, the cueing manipulation did not affect creativity; happy participants generated the most creative responses regardless of stop rule or cue.