Mood as input and catastrophic worrying

The authors describe 3 experiments investigating a "mood-as-input" approach to understanding catastrophic worrying. Experiment I found that induced ne gative mood increased the number of steps emitted in both a catastrophizing interview procedure and a positive iteration task. Experiment 2 found that the number of items that worriers emitted in an iterative item generation task was dependent on the stop rules specified by the procedure. Experiment 3 found that manipulating the stop rules for catastrophizing had different ial effects on worriers and nonworriers, depending on the nature of the sto p rules specified. These results suggest that mood provides information abo ut continuing or terminating the catastrophizing process that is interprete d in the context of the stop rules for the task. It is argued that the mood -as-input hypothesis accounts for the facts of exacerbated catastrophizing in worriers better than explanations couched in terms of either mood congru ency effects or worriers possessing a generalized perseverative iterative s tyle.