68 Mood, Cognition, and Memory
contrast, less salient, “peripheral” self-conceptions should
require more time-consuming substantive processing and
accordingly be influenced by an affect-priming effect. The re-
sults supported these predictions, making Sedikides’s (1995)
research the first to demonstrate differential mood-congruent
effects for central versus peripheral conceptions of the self,
a distinction that holds considerable promise for future
research in the area of social cognition.
Affect also appears to have a greater congruent influence
on self-related judgments made by subjects with low rather
than high levels of self-esteem, presumably because the for-
mer have a less stable self-concept (Brown & Mankowski,
1993). In a similar vein, Smith and Petty (1995) observed
stronger mood congruence in the self-related memories
reported by low rather than high self-esteem individuals. As
predicted by the AIM, these findings suggest that low self-
esteem people need to engage in more open and elaborate
processing when thinking about themselves, increasing the
tendency for their current mood to influence the outcome.
Affect intensity may be another moderator of mood con-
gruence: One recent study showed that mood congruence is
greater among people who score high on measures assessing
openness to feelings as a personality trait (Ciarrochi &
Forgas, 2000). However, other studies suggest that mood
congruence in self-judgments can be spontaneously reversed
as a result of motivated-processing strategies. Sedikides
(1994) observed that after mood induction, people initially
generated self-statements in a mood-congruent manner.
However, with the passage of time, negative self-judgments
spontaneously reversed, suggesting the operation of an
“automatic” process of mood management. Recent research
by Forgas and Ciarrochi (in press) replicated these results and
indicated further that the spontaneous reversal of negative
self-judgments is particularly pronounced in people with
high self-esteem.
In summary, moods have been shown to exert a strong con-
gruent influence on self-related thoughts and judgments, but
only when some degree of open and constructive processing
is required and when there are no motivational forces to over-
ride mood congruence. Research to date also indicates that
the infusion of affect into self-judgments is especially likely
when these judgments (a) relate to peripheral, as opposed
to central, aspects of the self; (b) require extensive, time-
consuming processing; and (c) reflect the self-conceptions of
individuals with low rather than high self-esteem.Mood Congruence in Person PerceptionThe AIM predicts that affect infusion and mood congruence
should be greater when more extensive, constructive process-
ing is required to deal with a task. Paradoxically, the more
people need to think in order to compute a response, the
greater the likelihood that affectively primed ideas will influ-
ence the outcome. Several experiments manipulated the com-
plexity of the subjects’ task in order to create more or less
demand for elaborate processing.
In one series of studies (Forgas, 1992), happy and sad sub-
jects were asked to read and form impressions about fictional
characters who were described as being rather typical or or-
dinary or as having an unusual or even odd combination of
attributes (e.g., an avid surfer whose favorite music is Italian
opera). The expectation was that when people have to form
an impression about a complex, ambiguous, or atypical
individual, they will need to engage in more constructiveFigure 3.1Attribution ratings made by subjects in a positive or negative mood for their
performance in an earlier exam as a function of exam score (high vs. low) and attribution
type (internal vs. stable).Source:Forgas, Bower, and Moylan, 1990.[Image not available in this electronic edition.]