MOOD CONGRUITY IN CHILDREN - EFFECTS OF AGE, IMAGERY CAPABILITY, AND DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS

The present study was designed to determine: (1) whether mood congruit y shows up the same way in children of different ages; (2) whether exp erimental mood induction by a mental imagery procedure is more effecti ve in subjects with high mental imagery capabilities; and (3) whether ''acting as if one is happy or sad'' results in the same biases as the real mood induction procedure. Five different groups were assembled, which received either a happy or a sad mood induction, a happy or a sa d simulation instruction or a neutral instruction (control group). Ins truction effects were measured on a task in which all subjects had to judge drawings of ambiguous facial expressions. Mood effects could be demonstrated for younger (n=152, mean age 6;11) as well as older child ren (n=151, mean age 10;9), but only for good imagers, not for bad one s. Judgements of happy and sad children were biased in a direction con gruent to the induced mood state. This mood congruity effect was not t he result of demand characteristics as it did not show up in both simu lation groups (i.e. children who were simply ''acting as if they were happy or sad'').