The influence of mood on the intensity of emotional responses: Disentangling feeling and knowing

The results of three experiments suggest that pre-existing mood increases t he intensity of affectively congruent emotions while dampening the intensit y of incongruent emotions independent of attributional knowledge. This resu lt was obtained using a new method for inducing mood states unobtrusively a nd with minimal or no cognitive concomitants. The results of Experiment 1 r evealed that for participants who were exposed to positive feedback a pre-e xisting positive mood led to stronger feelings of pride in comparison to ne gative mood. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 suggest that pre-existing m ood directly influences the experience of subsequently elicited emotions in dependent of what one knows about the causes of this feeling. When particip ants were required to differentiate between the funniness of a cartoon and their subjective humour response, mood influenced only the latter judgement (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, reminding participants of the mood induct ion resulted in a contrast effect in judging the funniness of a cartoon. Ho wever, the pre-existing mood continued to exert an assimilation effect on t he overt mirth response. In conclusion, these results suggest that the feel ing and knowledge component are partly independent bases of emotional respo nses.