HOW WOULD I FEEL IF - MOOD AS INPUT TO A ROLE FULFILLMENT EVALUATION PROCESS

Most theoretical models of the relation between mood and evaluation su ggest that people in positive moods tend to render more favorable eval uations than people in negative moods. If moods operate as input to a role fulfillment evaluation process, however, then mood-congruent eval uations are not inevitable, even when people incorporate their moods i nto their evaluations. Instead, the more people experience the feeling s (negative or positive) they could expect to feel if the target had f ulfilled its role (e.g., a particularly heart-wrenching sad story or a n especially funny comedy), the more favorably people should evaluate the target. Three experiments supported this hypothesis. Only the mood -as-input model seems capable of accounting for the results.