THE EFFECTS OF MOOD STATE ON JUDGMENTAL ACCURACY - PROCESSING STRATEGY AS A MECHANISM

Under commonly observed conditions, happy subjects appear to process i nformation in a relatively passive or nonsystematic, less detailed man ner and rely on peripheral cues and heuristics in judgement, whereas s ad subjects appear to process in a more active or systematic, more det ailed manner. Happy subjects should therefore display less accuracy on judgements that have a relatively objective accuracy criterion. Three studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Study 1, subjects who had training in statistics were exposed to a happy, neutral, or sa d mood induction procedure. Subjects then judged the magnitude and dir ection of correlation coefficients associated with each of nine scatte rplots. Happy subjects were least accurate and used fewest digits in t heir correlation estimates; sad subjects were most accurate and used m ost digits. In Study 2, subjects exposed to orthogonal affect and arou sal mood inductions completed the correlation estimation task. To addr ess process further, subjects provided ratings of their concentration on the task, their strategies for estimating the correlations, and exp lained the concept of a correlation. Happy subjects were least accurat e, used fewest digits in their estimates, reported least concentration , provided least detail in their explanations of correlations, wrote l east comprehensible explanations; however, they wrote most creative de scriptions. Sad subjects displayed the opposite pattern. Arousal had m inimal effects on all measures. In Study 3, processing strategy was di rectly manipulated by asking half of the subjects to think in detail w hile completing their correlation estimates and offering them a bonus point for good performance. The accuracy and digit effects shown in St udies 1 and 2 were replicated. Implications are discussed.