On the Impact of Mood on Behavior: An Integrative

Copyright 2000 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 1089-268O/O0/&.0O DOI: 10.1037//1089-2680.4.4.378

Review of General Psychology 2000, Vol. 4, No. 4, 378-408

On the Impact of Mood on Behavior: An Integrative Theory and a Review Guido H. E. Gendolla University of Erlangen Empirical evidence for effects of moods (both naturally occurring and experimentally manipulated) on behavior is reviewed in terms of an integrative theory: the moodbehavior model (MBM). It is posited that moods can influence behavior via 2 processes: (a) by informational effects on behavior-related judgments and appraisals, which in turn will result in behavioral adjustments (i.e., the informational mood impact on behavior), and (b) by influencing behavioral preferences and interests in compliance with a hedonic motive (i.e., the directive mood impact on behavior). The strength of the informational mood impact depends on moods' effective informational weight for behavior-related judgments and on mood-primed associations. The strength of the directive mood impact is predicted to be jointly determined by 2 variables: the strength of a hedonic motive and the instrumentality of possible acts for affect regulation.

The psychological literature on mood bears a dilemma. On the one hand, there are numerous approaches and studies on how mood influences cognitive processes (for reviews, see Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994; Forgas, 1995; Isen, 1987; Wyer, Clore, & Isbell, 1999). But on the other hand, there is still relatively little knowledge about how mood states influence human action. Rather, there are two widely shared general assumptions in the mood literature. The first is that mood influences cognitive processes, which will more or less automatically bear behavioral outcomes. The second is that people are hedonically oriented and thus always seek pleasure (maintain positive mood) and avoid pain (repair negative mood). There is empirical support for both perspectives. But an integrative

The present article was supported by a research grant from the German Science Foundation {Ge 987/1-1). I would like to thank Andrea Abele, Dan Batson, Jack Brehm, Joachim Brunstein, Jan Kriisken, Giuseppe Pantaleo, Paul Silvia, Rex Wright, and the attendees of the psychology and social psychology colloquia at the Universities of Erlangen, Kansas, and Alabama at Birmingham for helpful discussions and suggestions. Parts of this article were written while I visited the Social Psychology Program at the University of Kansas at Lawrence on a postdoctoral fellowship of the German Academic Exchange Service (D/98/14607). Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Guido H. E. Gendolla, University of Erlangen, Institute of Psychology, Bismarckstrasse 6, D-91054 Erlangen, Germany. Electronic mail may be sent to gendolla® phil.uni-erlangen.de.

theoretical framework making a small set of general predictions on how and when cognitive processes and hedonic motivation operate is still far from being available. In the present article, such a framework—the mood-behavior model (MBM)—is introduced. This theory considers both the cognitive and the hedonic motivation perspectives and provides a small set of general predictions on how moods affect action.1 On the basic level, this framework applies a terminology similar to that introduced by Wyer and Carlston (1979), who distinguished between the informative and directive effects of momentary affective states on cognitive processes. Here, a similar distinction is made in regard to possible mood effects on behavior. I suggest that moods can have (a) an informational impact by influencing behavior-related judgments and appraisals and (b) a directive impact in that they influence behavioral preferences in compliance with a hedonic motive. But the starting point of the present analysis is con-

1 Motivational processes have unique features, such as special temporal characteristics, that are clearly different from cognitive processes (Kruglanski, 1996; Kuhl, 1986). Activated goal states (which refer to motivation) persist over a long period of time, whereas memory structures (which refer to cognition) decay rapidly after activation (see Anderson, 1983). Furthermore, motivational states that do not result in goal attainment become even stronger over time (Atkinson & Birch, 1970). Accordingly, cognition and motivation should be considered as distinctive processes that can (and do), of course, interact.

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sidering what moods are, because this determines their potential impact on behavior. Mood, Emotion, and Motivation Moods are often described as diffuse and long-lasting affective states, and it is likely that individuals are, at any given time, in a more or less intense positive or negative mood (Morris, 1989). However, the most critical feature referring to moods' potential impact on behavior is that they are not object related. Although moods can be highly intense and salient, they are experienced without simultaneous awareness of their causes (Averill, 1980; Bollonow, 1956; M. S. Clark & Isen, 1982; Ewert, 1965; Frijda, 1993; Schwarz, 1990; Wyer et al., 1999; see Wilson, Laser, & Stone, 1982, for an empirical demonstration). Moods are naturally influenced by, for example, the diurnal rhythm (L. A. Clark, Watson, & Leeka, 1989; Robbins & Tanck, 1987), the weather (Schwarz & Clore, 1983), changes in the endocrine system (Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999; Canter, 1972), odors (Ehrlichman & Halpern, 1988), light and illumination (Baron, Rea, & Daniels, 1992), the distribution of positive and negative ions in the air (Baron, 1987), and the pleasantness of the environment in general (Schwarz, Strack, Kommer, & Wagner, 1987). Moreover, moods can be induced by direct manipulations of physiological processes, such as changes in forehead blood temperature (Zajonc, Murphy, & Inglehart, 1989). But moods can also be relatively specific "residuals of emotions" with eliciting incidents of which individuals are no longer aware (Bollnow, 1956). Furthermore, there are customary mood induction procedures in experimental mood research that have been summarized and evaluated elsewhere (e.g., Abele, 1995; M. Martin, 1990; Thayer, 1989; Westermann, Spies, Stahl, & Hesse, 1996). It has been suggested as well that relatively stable moods are tied to personality characteristics, such as neuroticism to negative mood and extraversion to positive mood (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1983), and that positive and negative affectivity may be traits themselves (e.g., Watson & Tellegen, 1985). However, if moods with their various origins are more than just white noise in the central nervous system and have any real function, that function seems to be informational. At the least, it has been demonstrated that moods

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can (a) activate information in memory (see Blaney, 1986; Forgas, 1995) and (b) serve as diagnostic information for evaluative judgments (see Clore et al., 1994; Schwarz, 1990). But one point is most relevant: Given that moods are not object related, I regard it as very unlikely that they can have specific and stable motivational implications. Consequently, their impact on behavior differs from the motivational function of emotions, their prominent relatives. Emotions are affective reactions to specific significant events. They define the organism's relationship with the environment and involve specific action tendencies to change or maintain it. Thus, specific emotions have stable motivational implications (e.g., anger and destruction of the anger-eliciting object or fear and escape from the fear-eliciting object; Plutchik, 1980). They prepare the body for action, which becomes evident in adjustments of the autonomic nervous system (see Cacioppo, Klein, Berntson, & Hatfield, 1993), and they urge the organism to behave in specific ways toward emotioneliciting events (e.g., Arnold, 1960; Batson, Shaw, & Oleson, 1992; Brehm, 1999; Frijda, 1986; Izard, 1993; Lazarus, 1991; McDougaU, 1908; Plutchik, 1980; Young, 1961). Furthermore, emotions have been conceptualized as processes rather than states (Scherer, 1982). Accordingly, they arise over time and pass different steps or stages of (conscious or unconscious) information processing and evaluations of incidents that, in turn, result in different emotional reactions to them (see Clore et al., 1994). The Mood-Behavior Model In accordance with the characteristics of mood states discussed thus far, the core assumption of the present model is that moods have no specific and stable motivational implications and function, but they can nevertheless have an influence on the initiation, intensity, and persistence of behavior, the aspects of behavior that are determined in the motivation process (Geen, 1995). Basically, moods can have (a) an informational impact on behavior, in that they influence behavior-related judgments and appraisals, and (b) a directive impact on behavior, by affecting behavioral preferences in compliance with a hedonic motive. Although I believe that individuals are basically oriented to the maxi-

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mization of positive affect and the minimization of negative affect (e.g., Atkinson, 1957; Epstein, 1980; Freud, 1952; E. T. Higgins, 1997; Schaller & Cialdini, 1990; Taylor, 1991; Zillmann, 1988), I outline subsequently that this hedonic principle alone is not sufficient to explain how moods influence behavior. Rather, hedonic motivation is limited to specific conditions. The same holds for informational mood impact. It follows that directive and informational mood effects (a) are conceptually independent from one another, (b) are determined by different variables, and (c) refer to different aspects of the motivation process and behavior characteristics. The directive impact primarily pertains to the initiation and direction of behavior, whereas the informational impact primarily affects behavior's intensity and persistence. The strength of each mood impact varies depending on further variables, and both mood effects can, consequently, occur alone or simultaneously.

Informational Mood Impact on Behavior Moods can offer information for behaviorrelated judgments and appraisals, which in turn influence behavior. Examples are judgments of necessary effort to carry out an act (i.e., intensity of behavior) and how long one has to continue performing until a pursued goal is attained (i.e., persistence of behavior). That is, the informational mood impact refers to the answers to behavior-related questions people intuitively ask themselves when they are faced with demands. Imagine a person who goes to work and is asked by his or her boss to complete a task, such as the solution of a technical problem. What will happen in the person's mind once the person is confronted with the demand? The person will ask himself or herself implicit performance-related questions. Examples are "Can I cope with it?" "Have I done enough?" and "Do I have to expend more effort?" The informational mood impact means that moods can influence these judgments and appraisals by means of a mood congruency effect, in that people in a positive mood make more optimistic judgments concerning evaluations and expectations than people in a negative mood. This has been demonstrated for both naturally occurring and experimentally manipulated moods (for reviews, see Abele, 1995; M. S. Clark & Williamson, 1989; Clore et al., 1994; Forgas, 1995;

Isen, 1987; Mayer, 1986). The answers to the intuitive questions people ask themselves in face of demands will have consequences for behavioral adjustments. Although mood in this case has no directive impact on behavior in the sense that persons choose a specific problem to work on (i.e., set a goal), it can influence behavior by providing information for behaviorrelated judgments and appraisals. Thus, referring to the intuitive questions mentioned earlier, people in a positive mood should feel more able to cope with a demand, should believe at an earlier point that they have done enough on a task, and should feel more comfortable with what they have expended than people in a negative mood. Mood-incongruent judgments are also possible under special conditions (Abele & Gendolla, 1999), but mood congruency seems to be the default effect that is highly reliable for naturally occurring moods (e.g., Mayer, Gaschke, Braverman, & Evans, 1992). My assumptions about informational mood impact come close to what Morris (1992) believes to be the function of moods: "serving as a cue to the individual about the resources available to meet environmental demands" (p. 264). But, according to my view, mood does not only provide information for answering the question about resources. Rather, it provides information for all evaluative behavior-related judgments and appraisal. For the moment, however, it is most relevant to explain how moods can be informative. They can be informative (a) by their effective diagnostic weight as information for behavior-related judgments and (b) by making behavior-relevant associations accessible.

Customary Views on How Moods Can Be Informative Mood as priming. The high interest in mood effects on cognitive processes was initialized by the assumption that emotions represent information units or nodes in individuals' semantic memory network, where they are connected with associative pointers (Bower, 1981; M. S. Clark & Isen, 1982). Originally, Bower referred to specific emotions rather than moods. He posited that emotions are linked with other information units such as past events that have elicited the emotion, verbal labels and general knowledge about the emotion, and representations of expressive behaviors. However, later


versions (e.g., Bower, 1991) referred also to "mood nodes." The activation of such a mood node was predicted to prime other information units that are associated (i.e., semantically connected) with it. Mood congruency effects on judgments depend, then, on the extent of activated mood-congruent information (e.g., Forgas & Bower, 1987). Thus, the main implication of the mood-as-priming view is that moods influence judgments, such as demand appraisals, by making mood-congruent information highly accessible. Information stored during a positive mood should be remembered relatively easily if the retrieval occurs again during a positive mood, but not if it occurs during a "neutral" or a negative mood. This has been shown to be the case in some studies (e.g., Bower, 1981, 1991; Forgas & Bower, 1987; Forgas, Bower, & Krantz, 1984). But other research has revealed asymmetrical or even no mood effects (for reviews, see Blaney, 1986; Isen, 1987; Morris, 1989). Explanations of these inconsistencies have recently been sought via theoretical specifications. Niedenthal and colleagues (e.g., Niedenthal, Halberstadt, & Setterlund, 1997; Niedenthal & Setterlund, 1994) posited that the main reason for the several failures to demonstrate moodcongruent recall is that mood refers to a valence dimension (positive-negative affect), whereas affect-related information is stored in categories (specific emotions). Consequently, unspecific affect cannot increase the accessibility of specific knowledge. Niedenthal and colleagues demonstrated, for example, that induction of sadness results in easier access to sadnessrelated information but impaired access to anger-related information. Given that anger and sadness share the same valence (both are negative affective states), this speaks against the assumption that unspecific affect can increase the accessibility of affective information. Accordingly, Niedenthal and colleagues proposed that emotion priming works but that mood priming does not. However, it is also possible that moods are more specific than simply positive or negative. According to Ekman (1984), there are not only specific emotions (e.g., happiness, anger, and fear) but also relatively specific moods (e.g., euphoria, irritation, and apprehension). As outlined earlier, the critical difference between these types of affect is whether the eliciting incident is activated concurrently

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with the feeling state itself (e.g., "I feel irritated today" vs. "I am angry about you"). Given that participants in the studies by Niedenthal and colleagues worked on reaction time tasks that capture much, if not all, attentional capacity, it is rather implausible that they were aware of the affect-eliciting incidents when accessibility was tested. Consequently, this research can also be interpreted as bearing evidence for mood-aspriming effects, although the induced moods were apparently quite specific. Wyer et al. (1999) have formulated a more basic criticism of the mood-as-priming view. According to these authors, affective states cannot prime any information. Rather, affective reactions stimulate thoughts, such as state labeling, attributions, and appraisals, which in turn activate semantic concepts and declarative knowledge. That is, the effectiveness of indirect affect priming depends on the extent of thinking about the affective state, rather than on affect per se. However, data from Niedenthal et al. (1997) speak against this assumption. These authors induced positive and negative affect with music and asked participants to write down 15 words that referred to any idea or thought they had while listening to the music. This measure did not reveal that participants spontaneously labeled (i.e., thought about) their affective states. In summary, evidence for the mood-as-priming view is mixed. However, in the present context, it is not critical whether mood increases the accessibility of mood-congruent knowledge directly or indirectly, or whether unspecific or specific moods provide stronger effects. In the present framework, it is most critical that moods can, in fact, make knowledge accessible. Of particular interest is knowledge that refers to behavior, such as experiences with certain types of demands or general schemes and scripts about behavioral procedures and outcomes (cf. Bless et al., 1996). If such knowledge is (directly or indirectly) activated by (unspecific or specific) moods, and if the activated knowledge is mood congruent, it will increase the strength of the informational mood impact on behavior. Mood as information. Schwarz and Clore (1983,1988) offered an alternative to the moodas-priming view. According to their mood-asinformation approach, people use their momentary feeling states as diagnostic information for evaluative judgments by asking themselves how

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they feel about a judgmental issue.2 This approach predicts mood congruency effects when individuals evaluate something global, such as their life as a whole, in that they use a judgmental heuristic and misattribute their feeling state to the judgmental issue. Consequently, they evaluate it as more positive in a good mood and as more negative in a bad mood. The critical precondition is that the informational value of a mood is not in question. In this regard, it has been demonstrated that mood congruency effects and judgments decrease significantly if people become aware of mood-eliciting events as causes for their actual feeling states (Hirt, Levine, McDonald, Melton, & Martin, 1997; Schwarz & Clore, 1983; Sinclair, Mark, & Clore, 1994; see also Gasper & Clore, 1998) or if they have other diagnostic information available (Abele, Gendolla, & Petzold, 1998; Abele & Petzold, 1994); these findings are hardly explicable in terms of mood as priming. Later, Schwarz (1990) extended the mood-as-information approach to a cognitive tuning perspective and posited stable mood-immanent motivational implications for information-processing strategies: Positive mood is directly associated with effortless processing strategies (because positive affect informs the person that everything is alright), whereas negative mood is bound up with effortful information processing (because negative affect informs the organism that there are problems). Similar processing style assumptions have been made by other researchers (Bodenhausen, 1993; Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Fiedler, 1988; Forgas, 1995; Mackie & Worth, 1991) and are discussed later.3

means that mood influences judgments in terms of a mood-as-priming process. Furthermore, this is posited to be particularly the case if individuals are in a negative mood. Second, if, by contrast, the personal relevance of a judgment is low, and only low cognitive capacity is available, moods are predicted to infuse judgments in terms of "How do I feel about it?" (i.e., the mood-as-information process). This is posited to be particularly the case when one is in a positive mood. Thus, by adding process style assumptions, the AIM attempts to specify conditions for the occurrence of mood-as-priming and mood-as-information processes. This approach is discussed later as well. Mood as input. The assumption that moods have stable motivational implications for information processing (such as use of heuristics according to Schwarz & Clore, 1988, or Forgas, 1995) has been challenged by L. L. Martin and colleagues (L. L. Martin, Achee, Ward, & Harlow, 1993; L. L. Martin, Ward, Achee, & Wyer, 1993). Their mood-as-input approach posits that moods are used as diagnostic information for behavioral judgments but that they do not have any stable motivational implications (not even for information processing). Mood effects on behavior are predicted to be a function of the context in which a judgment is made, rather than a function of mood itself. Depending on the judgmental context, a particular mood state can have completely different meanings. Accordingly, behavioral consequences will be different when people in a negative mood ask themselves "Do I enjoy what I am doing?" (result: stopping) than when they ask them-

Affect infusion. Forgas (1995) has formulated an integrative multiprocess approach, the affect-infusion model (AIM), that considers both processes—mood as information and mood as priming—significant, but each under different conditions than the other. The AIM posits a continuum from low (direct access and motivated reasoning) to high (heuristic processing and substantive processing) infusion of affective states into judgments. If affect infusion is high (i.e., when moods affect judgments in terms of mood congruency effects), specifically two predictions are relevant. First, if the personal relevance of a judgment is high, and sufficient cognitive capacity is available, the AIM predicts a substantial processing style, which

2 Damasio (1994), in his "somatic marker hypothesis," offered similar reasoning on the role of affect in decision making at the neurophysiological level of analysis. However, the somatic marker hypothesis posits that individuals use a great variety of affective and physiological responses for judgments and decisions (see also Pribram, 1970). Thus, Damasio's focus is not on the impact of unspecific moods on these processes. Rather, Damasio highlighted the role of more pointed emotional responses to specific events and outcomes (e.g., Batson, Engel, & Fridell, 1999). 3 Referring directly to mood effects on behavior, Schwarz and Bohner (1996) have applied the mood-as-information approach to Heckhausen's (1986) and Gollwitzer's (1990) action phases model. They posit that moods influence behavior via their effects on information processing and behavior-related judgments before and after decisions among action goals,


selves "Have I done enough?" (result: continuing). For the realm of behavior-related judgments, this led to specific predictions of the role of mood in motivation that were tested in experiments (L. L. Martin, Ward, et al., 1993). I discuss in detail later evidence for informational mood impacts on behavior.

The Pragmatic Alternative: Mood and Information Integration According to Schwarz and Clore (1988), moods influence judgments alone (in terms of a heuristic) or not at all (if mood is attributed to an external source and thus discounted as diagnostic information). Abele and Petzold (1994) have advanced this approach in terms of a mood-and-information-integration explanation of mood congruency effects (see also Abele & Gendolla, 1999; Abele et al., 1998). According to this perspective, mood-congruent judgments are not due to a heuristic or misattribution process, as posited by Schwarz (1990; Scbwarz & Clore, 1988). Rather, because people are never "moodless," their mood state is one piece of information that they always integrate into a judgment. People do this rather pragmatically in that they look for all suitable information that is available to make a judgment. Moods' effective weight varies, however, with the diagnosticity of mood for the judgment at hand and the entire amount of available information. In general, moods have a much higher diagnosticity for evaluative judgments (e.g., "How capable do I feel in regard to this task?") than for nonevaluative judgments (e.g., "How many items do I have to memorize?"). Moreover, for evaluative judgments in which moods are highly diagnostic, moods' effective and measurable impact depends on the amount and diagnosticity of additionally available information. The more other information is available, and the more diagnostic the other information for a judgment, the weaker the relative impact of mood as one piece of information. Thus, the extent of mood congruency effects on judgments depends on moods' relative informational weight. According to Abele and Petzold, the integration process follows the averaging rule posited by N. H. Anderson (1981):

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Y=

+ X-

Y is the resulting judgment, X{ are scale values representing the values of the single pieces of information i for the judgmental dimension in question, and w, are their weights. Xo corresponds to the overall impression of the issue, and w0 is its weight. Mood refers to this overall impression in the formula. It follows that moods' effective informational weight decreases with the amount of additional diagnostic information that is integrated into a judgment. Furthermore, the informativeness of mood is independent of any information-processing styles. One further, not yet explored aspect of the mood-and-information-integration approach is that, in contrast to the other approaches discussed thus far, which consider mood as (a piece of) diagnostic information, it does not exclude or deny mood-as-priming effects. This approach posits that not mood alone, but all available information, influences judgments. Consequently, information activated by a (direct or indirect) mood-as-priming process is integrated with the informational value of mood itself. If available information is mood congruent, it will strengthen the mood congruency of the judgment; otherwise, it will weaken it. Accordingly, the mood-and-information-integration perspective offers an integrative, elegant, and precise account of two ways in which moods have been demonstrated to affect judgments. Furthermore, according to this approach, the mood-as-priming and mood-as-diagnosticinformation perspectives can contribute independently to mood congruency effects on behavior-related judgments. The relative contributions of both processes to a judgment can be determined via customary experimental strategies. The contribution of mood as priming should resist manipulations that place the diagnostic value of mood in question, for instance by providing a cue for a mood manipulation (e.g., Gasper & Clore, 1998; Hirt et al., 1997; Schwarz & Clore, 1983; Sinclair et al., 1994). In terms of the mood-and-information-integration approach, this means that the diagnosticity and, thus, the relative informational weight of mood are reduced. Furthermore, the contribution of mood as priming should become visible in ac-

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cessibility of information paradigms, such as the lexical decision task, whereas the mood-asa-piece-of-information approach is not very diagnostic here. Most critical, die research of Niedenthal et al. (1997; Niedenthal & Setterlund, 1994) suggests that only specific moods can prime associations and that these associations are, in turn, also very specific. Accordingly, it is unlikely that the mood-as-priming process will contribute much to global judgments, because specific information is not very diagnostic for such judgments.

Directive Mood Impact on Behavior The directive mood impact on behavior refers to behavioral preferences and, thus, to the initiation and direction of behavior. In this case, behaviors are chosen and carried out under the maxim of affect regulation (i.e., elevating or at least maintaining a momentary affective state). Imagine somebody who wakes up in the morning and feels grumpy without any obvious reason. What will this person do? I posit that this depends on the strength of the person's need to feel better and the behavioral alternatives the person has to achieve this need. If the person is faced with a strict diurnal schedule (preparing breakfast, getting dressed, arrive at a meeting on time, etc.), it is likely that he or she will simply do what is asked for. But imagine the person waking up in a bad mood on a Sunday morning, having no appointments, and being able to choose among several behavioral alternatives. In this case, I predict that the person will do something pleasant that he or she believes will enhance his or her affective state. The same holds valid for a person who wakes up in an intense positive mood. Affect regulative behaviors (mood maintenance, in this case) will be carried out if there is a strong need to feel good combined with behavioral facilities to achieve this need. The prerequisite for this is that behavior is basically guided by a hedonic motive. That is, individuals are basically oriented to the maximization of positive affect and the minimization of negative affect (e.g., Atkinson, 1957; Epstein, 1980; Freud, 1952; E. T. Higgins, 1997; Schaller & Cialdini, 1990; Taylor, 1991; Zillmann, 1988). But though this motive may explain behavioral preferences, the critical question is how and when these preferences translate to overt action. The hedonic principle

per se is obviously insufficient for this, because people are not always engaged in behaviors that maximize positive affect. Furthermore, as outlined later, there is no consistent evidence in the psychological literature that a negative mood always results in mood-repairing behaviors or that a positive mood always results in moodmaintaining behaviors. Thus, moderator variables are needed. In this regard, I posit that the strength of the directive mood impact on behavior depends on two critical factors. The first factor is the momentary strength of a person's hedonic motive, and the second factor is possible acts' instrumentality for satisfying this motive. In the present context, the concept of instrumentality (Raynor, 1969; Vroom, 1964) describes the extent to which carrying out a specific act allows maximization of positive affect and minimization of negative affect. Relative to acts with low instrumentality for affect regulation, highly instrumental acts should be carried out with a higher likelihood in choice situations, should be viewed as more important, and should be carried out with higher interest. The hedonic motive and possible acts' instrumentality for affect regulation are both necessary for the instigation of the directive mood impact on behavior. Accordingly, the strength of the directive mood impact on behavior is determined in the tradition of Expectancy X Value models of motivation (see Heckhausen, 1991, for a review). The strength of the hedonic motive and the magnitude of acts' instrumentality for motive satisfaction are, in turn, determined by further variables.

Motive Strength In the present framework, the motive construct is applied according to Lewin's (1926, 1935) conceptualization of psychological needs (i.e., quasi-needs), which are proposed to influence behavior in basically the same way as do biological needs such as hunger or thirst. Accordingly, a motive is a dynamic concept. Motive strength can vary depending on situational factors. Once a motive is activated, it urges the organism to motive satisfaction. This should be particularly the case if the activated motive is strong. Furthermore, there is the principle of equifinality, which fits with my assumption that moods do not have stable motivational implications. One motive can activate various equifinal


action goals whose attainment will lead to motive satisfaction. Three factors appear to be central situational determinants of the hedonic motive' s strength: mood intensity, mood salience, and situational context. I suggest that the strength of the hedonic motive covaries with the intensity of the momentary mood state a person is in. The more intense a negative mood, the stronger the need to repair it, and the more intense a positive mood, the stronger the need to maintain it. On the one hand, there is evidence suggesting that intense negative moods coincide with a relatively strong hedonic motive in that negative feelings reflect an affective deficit and elicit interest in mood repair (Abele, 1992a; Morris & Reilly, 1987; Saavedra & Earley, 1991; Spies, 1990; Thayer, Newman, & McClain, 1994). Consequently, people who feel bad should prefer mood regulative behaviors to a higher degree than behaviors without such mood regulating qualities, and perhaps mood regulation should be of higher interest during a negative than during a positive mood.4 But, on the other hand, research by Wegener and Petty (1994) has clearly demonstrated—under controlled conditions—that people in a positive mood are more sensitive to affect regulation than are people in a negative mood. Thus, it is hardly maintainable that the hedonic motive is stronger during a negative than during a positive mood. But it is noteworthy that most evidence for clear associations between negative mood and interest in mood repair stems from questionnaire studies (Abele, 1992a; Cunningham, 1988; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Thayer et al., 1994) in which participants report their mood-repairing interests and activities when they were aware of a bad mood in every-day situations (i.e., when they are in a naturally elicited intense negative mood). Demonstrations of deliberative mood repair under controlled experimental conditions (e.g., Spies, 1990) are less available. The reason may be that, in the laboratory, induced positive moods are often more intense than induced negative moods, which is reflected in a positivity bias in mood manipulation checks, a rather customary finding. Naturally occurring negative moods may be more intense than those induced in the laboratory under test conditions. However, given that there is relatively clear evidence for mood repair when negative mood is intense, as is there evidence for mood maintenance

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when positive mood is intense, I conclude that mood intensity rather than mood valence is a critical determinant of the strength of the hedonic motive: Motive strength covaries with mood intensity. Also, the salience of a momentary mood can affect motive strength. In this regard, it has been demonstrated that the experience of moods (Salovey, 1992), particularly negative moods (Sedikides, 1992; Wood, Saltzberg, & Goldsamt, 1990), is associated with self-focused attention, which is perhaps the prerequisite for knowing how one feels. The salience of a feeling may in turn (but does not need to) be positively correlated with its intensity (see Lanzetta, Biernat, & Kleck, 1982; Scheier & Carver, 1977; Silvia, 1999). However, when people are distracted from their feeling states, their hedonic motive should be weaker than when their momentary feeling is in their focus of attention. This is indirectly supported by the fact that distracting oneself from a negative mood is a customary strategy for mood regulation (Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Thayer et al., 1994; Wegener & Petty, 1994; Zillmann, 1988) and that individuals control their negative moods by deliberatively shifting their focus of attention away from negative thoughts (M. S. Clark & Isen, 1982; Forgas, Johnson, & Ciarrochi, 1998; Klinger, 1982). Furthermore, alcohol consumption, also a customary strategy for the regulation of naturally occurring moods (Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Thayer et al., 1994), has been demonstrated to reduce both self-focus and negative affect (Hull & Bond, 1986). Conversely, there is a "normal" tendency to enjoy self-focus after having attained positive outcomes and feeling good about that (Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1985). Another determinant of the strength of the hedonic motive is the situational context a person is in. This context can define whether positive affect is appropriate and functional or not. In situations in which positive affect is inappropriate (e.g., as a result of social norms), the 4 Research by Trope and colleagues on feedback seeking (Trope & Neter, 1994; Trope & Pomerantz, 1998) is in further indirect support of this. These authors demonstrated that people in positive affective states tolerate negative feedback about the self—that usually results in negative affect (Swann, Griffin, Predmore, & Gaines, 1987)— whereas people in negative affective states do not.

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hedonic motive should be weaker than in situations in which positive affect is appropriate or "allowed" (see Morris & Reilly, 1987; Parrott, 1993). In this regard, Erber, Wegner, and Therriault (1996) demonstrated that so-called neutral mood (i.e., mood of low intensity) rather than positive mood will be preferred in such situations. Participants in Erber et al.'s studies tried to "neutralize" their moods when they expected to interact with a stranger. Accordingly, the hedonic motive is weak under such circumstances, but it is unlikely that a motive to suffer becomes concurrently strong. Taken together, the central condition under which the hedonic motive should be especially strong is a highly intense mood a person is aware of while simultaneously positive affect does not appear to be inappropriate or dysfunctional. Although these features can be interrelated, the evidence mentioned earlier suggests that each of them can increase the hedonic motive's strength alone (i.e., independently of the other features). But according to the MBM, even a strong hedonic motive is insufficient for a directive mood impact on behavior. It is also necessary that behaviors can be carried out that are instrumental for affect regulation.

Instrumentality for Affect Regulation Hedonic associations of possible acts represent one critical variable. As an example, most people will agree that washing the dishes and visiting a dentist are relatively unpleasant actions, whereas going to the beach or a party is rather pleasant. In this context, one point becomes important: Wegener and Petty (1994) have outlined in their hedonic-contingency hypothesis that fewer behaviors allow affect regulation during a positive than during a negative mood. That is, mood valence also affects the instrumentality variable. The reason for this asymmetry is that, when one is in a negative mood, nearly any kind of behavior can elate the momentary bad feeling state simply by distraction. But during a positive mood, behaviors' hedonic tone has to be positive merely for maintenance of this state. Thus, the magnitude of hedonically neutral behaviors' instrumentality for affect regulation should be higher during a negative than during a positive mood. As outlined earlier, Wegener and Petty's reasoning is, however, at odds with research sug-

gesting that people are rather free and optimistic in their action preferences and goal settings in a positive mood but pessimistic and directly oriented toward mood regulation in a negative mood (e.g., Abele, 1992a, 1992b; Cunningham, 1988; Saavedra & Earley, 1991; Spies, 1990). According to Wegener and Petty, it should be vice versa: Persons in a negative mood should focus less on action planning, because almost anything they do is affect elating. But the MBM predicts that the strength of the hedonic motive is likely to be affected by mood intensity rather than mood valence. Taking into account that it is easier in the laboratory to induce and maintain intense positive mood than intense negative mood, it is possible that the hedonic motive of Wegener and Petty's participants was stronger in the positive than in the negative mood conditions.5 In addition to the hedonic tone of behavior itself, the hedonic tone of behaviors' consequences is central for the magnitude of instrumentality variable. According to Atkinson's (1957,1964) risk-taking model, individuals perform achievement tasks to maximize positive affect (specifically pride) that is felt after success and to minimize negative affect (specifically shame) that is felt after failure. Atkinson's predictions are, of course, more complex and involve more variables. But in the present context, it is relevant that this theory suggests that the hedonic consequences of behavior have an incentive function. Applied to the MBM, this means that the anticipation of behaviors' affective consequences influences the instrumentality these behaviors have for the satisfaction of the hedonic motive. The three discussed factors referring to the magnitude of the instrumentality variable are all sufficient to determine the magnitude of behaviors' instrumentality for affect regulation. They can, however, have a joint impact on this variable, as in the case of a behavior that is both pleasant itself and promising of a positive affective outcome. 5 Note that Wegener and Petty used in their studies a rather poor mood manipulation check with high demand characteristics. Participants were asked how the mood induction procedures (films or imagination) made them feel, instead of how they felt after the induction without reference to the induction.


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388

The MBM in Summary: Five Basic Postulates

Evidence for Informational Mood Impact on BehavioT

Before a review of empirical findings on mood effects on behavior, the present theory can be summarized. Figure 1 presents a graphical depiction, five basic postulates are offered as follows. Postulate 1; Moods have—in contrast to emotions—no stable or specific motivational implications or function. Moods are experienced without simultaneous awareness of their causes. Consequently, moods do not urge the organism to act in a specific way toward objects or incidents that elicited the moods. Postulate 2: Moods influence behavior by their informational and directive impacts. The informational impact refers to congruency effects on behavior-related judgments and appraisals. The directive mood impact refers to the pursuit of a hedonic motive, and thus behavioral preferences are affected. Postulate 3: Informational and directive mood impacts can influence behavior independently. Either of these impacts is sufficient to mediate mood states to behavior, but both can occur simultaneously as well. In addition, both mood impacts can be so weak that neither has a significant influence. Postulate 4: The strength of the informational mood impact is a function of the effective informational weight of mood and the extent of mood-primed associations. Mood is particularly diagnostic for evaluative judgments, and mood-primed associations are especially likely to be activated in specific mood states, when moods are residuals of specific emotions. Postulate 5: The strength of the directive mood impact is jointly determined by the strength of the hedonic motive and the magnitude of behaviors' instrumentality for motive satisfaction. The strength of the hedonic motive is, in turn, determined by mood intensity, mood salience, and situational context. The magnitude of behaviors' instrumentality for motive satisfaction is determined by the hedonic tone of behavior itself, the hedonic tone of behavioral outcomes, and mood valence.

The informational mood impact on behavior means that mood has a congruency effect on behavior-related judgments and appraisals, which in turn influence behavior. Furthermore, I posit that the informational mood impact primarily affects the persistence and the intensity of behavior. A clear mood impact on the persistence of behavior was demonstrated by L. L. Martin, Ward, et al. (1993). Taking into account that approaching and attaining goals is associated with positive affect, whereas nonattainment or lack of approach is associated with negative affect (e.g., Brunstein, 1993; Carver & Scheier, 1990; Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939; Pribram, 1970; Taylor & Gollwitzer, 1994), these authors posited that a particular mood state can have different, even opposite, motivational implications depending on its interpretation. Participants were induced into negative or positive moods and performed tasks dealing with impression formation (Experiment 1) or retrieval of information from memory (Experiment 2). They received instructions to continue performing as long as they enjoyed it or until they felt that they had done enough. As expected, participants in a positive mood stopped sooner when they were instructed to perform until they felt that they had done enough. But relative to participants in a bad mood, they stopped later when they were instructed to continue performing as long as they enjoyed it. Furthermore, participants in a negative mood stopped sooner than those in a positive mood when they were instructed to perform as long as they enjoyed the task. But they stopped later when they were asked to perform until they felt that they had done enough. This clear demonstration of an informational mood impact on the persistence of behavior has been replicated in other experiments (e.g., Hirt et al., 1997; Hirt, Melton, McDonald, & Harackiewicz, 1996; Sanna, Turley, & Mark, 1996). Furthermore, Experiment 2 of L. L. Martin, Ward, et al. (1993) involved a condition in which participants performed without a manipulated stop rule. Here, those in a negative mood persisted longer than those in a positive mood, suggesting that "Have I done enough?" is the default question individuals intuitively ask themselves under test conditions.


Gendolla, Abele, and Kriisken (2000) investigated the impact of mood states on energization (i.e., mobilization of effort) assessed as physiological response, that is, cardiovascular (CV) adjustments. This study highlighted an informational mood impact on the intensity of behavior. Participants were induced into positive or negative moods via two induction techniques (listening to music or autobiographical recollection). These techniques varied in extent of required effort. As expected, and in line with Postulate 1 of the MBM, there were no differences in energization between the mood valence conditions during this period, although mood was successfully induced according to self-report measures. Thus, the physiological measures indicated no differences in energization between positive and negative moods. But there was the predicted effect of the mood induction manipulation. Participants in the relatively effortful autobiographical recollection condition were more energized than those in the statement condition. After the mood inductions, participants performed a letter cancellation task. Before completing this task, they rated the level of task difficulty, the necessary amount of effort for performing well, and subjective capability to cope with the task. There were mood congruency effects on all judgments: The task was perceived as more demanding during a negative than during a positive mood. In line with previous research on the relationship between task demand and energization (R. A. Wright, 1996; see also Gendolla, 1998, 1999), physiological measures during task performance reflected higher energization during a negative than during a positive mood. Thus, although mood was not energizing per se, it had an impact on taskrelated judgments and effort mobilization. In another study (Gendolla & Kriisken, 1999, Study 2) that involved the letter cancellation task and mood inductions via funny versus sad video excerpts, we were able to replicate and extend these findings. We observed once more no effects of mood valence during the mood inductions—all participants calmed down according to the physiological measures, although the mood inductions were successful according to self-report measures—and we again found higher demand appraisals during a negative than during a positive mood. Most relevant, this study showed the mediating effects of moodcongruent demand appraisals on CV adjust-

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ments during task performance: When we statistically controlled mood-congruent demand appraisals, the mood valence effect on CV response diminished. Still another study by Gendolla and Kriisken (1999, Study 1) involved manipulations of mood (negative or positive) and task difficulty of a memory task (easy, difficult, or extremely difficult). Applying the present reasoning about the informational mood impact on subjective demand to Brehm's theory of motivation (Brehm & Self, 1989; R. A. Wright & Brehm, 1989), we expected that mood would moderate the effect of task difficulty on CV response during task performance. Specifically, we anticipated that CV responses during performance on an easy task would be higher during a negative than during a positive mood. This should reflect differences in energization due to higher perceived demand during a negative than during a positive mood. At the difficult level, we anticipated low CV response during a negative mood, because the demand should be perceived as too high to cope actively with it. However, for positive mood, we predicted strong CV response at this difficulty level, because demand should be perceived as high but not too high. That is, at this level, we expected a difference between disengagement (negative mood) and high engagement (positive mood). Finally, at the extremely high difficulty level, we predicted low CV responses in both mood states, because this task was supposed to be objectively insolvable for all participants. Consequently, mood as a source of information should have a very low effective weight (cf. Abele & Gendolla, 1999; Abele et al., 1998; Abele & Petzold, 1994). The results were in full support of the predictions. Furthermore, there was again no mood valence effect on CV adjustments during the mood inductions via autobiographical recollection. These findings were replicated in a study by Gendolla and Kriisken (in press) that manipulated positive and negative moods by exposure to music and task difficulty of a letter cancellation task. Taken together, these studies (Gendolla et al., 2000; Gendolla & Kriisken, 1999, in press) clearly support two central assumptions of the MBM. The first is that mood per se is not energizing. This represents strong support for the present assumption that moods are (in contrast to specific emotions) not motivational

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states. The second is that moods can have an impact on the process of motivation and consequently on behavior, though they have no stable motivational implications. In this regard, our research focused on an informational mood impact on intensity of behavior and produced clear evidence of this effect. Most of the previous studies in the area of mood-behavior linkages were based on the mood-as-priming approach (Bower, 1981, 1991; M. S. Clark & Isen, 1982) and assessed mood effects on behavior-related judgments. These judgments' actual effects on overt behavior were, however, not often investigated. The results were interpreted as support for the assumption that mood states are mediated to behavior-related judgments via primed associations. The most frequently assessed dependent variables were expectancies, specifically those for outcomes and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977). The results of these studies corresponded to other research involving both experimentally manipulated (e.g., Johnson & Tversky, 1983) and naturally occurring (e.g., Mayer & Volanth, 1985) moods and demonstrating that positive mood is correlated with higher optimism, whereas negative mood is associated with higher pessimism. In this regard, J. Wright and Mischel (1982) found symmetrical mood effects on behavior-related judgments. Induction into a positive mood led to higher expectancies for success, higher estimates of past successes, and more favorable self-evaluations on global traits, whereas induction into a negative mood resulted in lower expectancies, lower estimates of past successes, and rather negative self-assessments. Kavanagh and Bower (1985) also observed mood congruency effects. Their participants reported higher general self-efficacy expectations in various domains (such as athletics and interpersonal) after they had been induced into a positive mood. But they reported lower self-efficacy in a negative mood. In another study by Saavedra and Earley (1991), participants judged target persons. In addition to other results, these authors observed higher selfefficacy during positive than negative moods. In still another study, Horn and Arbuckle (1988) observed that children in a positive mood set higher performance standards than did those in a negative mood. This was basically replicated by Baron (1990) in a study with adults. Participants in a positive mood set higher standards

on a subsequent coding task than those in a neutral mood. There were also higher self-efficacy ratings during a positive mood, but surprisingly only among men. Still further evidence for the informational mood impact stems from research on naturally occurring moods and coping appraisals. Lyubomirsky, Tucker, Caldwell, and Berg (1999) found that dysphoric individuals rated the likelihood of implementing a solution for personal problems as significantly lower than nondysphoric persons. This was particularly the case if the dysphoric individuals ruminated about their problems. Gunthert, Cohen, and Armeli (1999) produced similar results for the impact of neuroticism, a trait variable that is strongly associated with the experience of negative mood (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1983). Participants who scored high on neuroticism and negative mood rated interpersonal stressors as more negative, and their resources to cope with them as lower, than did persons scoring low on neuroticism and negative mood. That is, negative mood was associated with pessimistic demand appraisals. Evidence for Simultaneous Informational and Directive Mood Impacts on Behavior Two studies by Cunningham (1988) are instructive here. The first investigation surveyed behavioral interests in the presence of positive and negative moods. Participants in a positive mood indicated interest in prosocial, social, leisure, and general activities but no interest in nonsocial, antisocial, and intimate behaviors. By contrast, participants in a negative mood were less interested in social activities but more interested in being alone. This replicated previous findings by Helm (1954, 1958) and Strickland, Hale, and Anderson (1975) and indicated a directive mood impact on behavior, because mood affected behavioral preferences. The second study by Cunningham focused on potential cognitive mediators between mood states and behavioral interests. The clearest mediators were higher expectancies for positive outcomes and higher perceived energy in a positive mood. But perceived ability—indicating selfefficacy in terms of Bandura's (1977) model— was not affected by mood. However, expectancies and perceived energy were influenced in a mood-congruent manner reflecting an infor-


mational mood impact on behavior-related judgments. Cervone, Kopp, Schaumann, and Scott (1994) investigated mood effects on perceived self-efficacy and the setting of performance standards in a variety of customary activity areas and new tasks. These authors observed that a negative mood resulted in higher minimal performance standards than did positive and so-called neutral moods, and even resulted in negative discrepancies between the level of perceived self-efficacy and the minimal performance standards participants had set: Those who felt bad set standards that exceeded their perceived ability. The same had already been observed by J. Wright and Mischel (1982). According to Cervone et al., such discrepancies are not explicable in terms of the mood-as-priming approach. This model predicts that high perceived self-efficacy during a positive mood and low perceived efficacy during a negative mood coincide with the corresponding setting of low and high performance standards (e.g., Kavanagh & Bower, 1985). Cervone et al. explained their findings in terms of the mood-asinformation model (Schwarz, 1990; Schwarz & Ctore, 1988). Accordingly, participants used their feeling states as diagnostic information. When participants evaluated their performance standards in a negative mood, they judged them as being too low, because they felt bad with their actual aspiration level. Consequently, they set higher minimal performance standards. But why were ratings of self-efficacy not affected? Referring to this question, Cervone et al. (1994) speculated that only judgments of achievement standards were affected by mood as information, because they were more closely bound up with evaluations of feelings than ability estimates, which are supposed to be made relatively analytically. Thus, according to Cervone et al.'s interpretation, their results demonstrate an informational mood impact on behavior. But interestingly, a directive mood impact explanation is also possible. The directive mood impact explanation refers to the instrumentality of standard setting for the maximization of positive affect. According to Atkinson (1957, 1964), extremely unlikely achievement outcomes have the highest incentive value and result in maximal positive affect after success. The choice of an aspiration level slightly above one's own self-reported ability may facilitate

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maximally positive affect after success, because one achieved more than expected. Simultaneously, it facilitates minimally negative affect after failure, because the task was extremely difficult and—at least according to participants' self-reports—even exceeded their own abilities, which reduced their responsibility for potential failures. According to this line of thought, the findings of Cervone et al. and J. Wright and Mischel are interpretable as indicating a selfhandicapping strategy (see R. Higgins, Snyder, & Berglas, 1990) to minimize further negative affect and to maximize potential positive affect. In terms of the MBM, this means that the Cervone et al. studies demonstrated a directive rather than an informational mood impact on behavior. But in addition to this interpretation of the findings of Cervone et al. (1994) and J. Wright and Mischel (1982), a third alternative explanation is possible: Informational (standard setting) and directive (self-handicapping) mood impacts on behavior worked simultaneously, as they did in the study by Cunningham (1988). Clearer evidence for simultaneously working informational and directive mood impacts stems from a study by Saavedra and Earley (1991). These authors demonstrated mood effects on both behavioral preferences, indicated by task preferences and goal setting in compliance with a hedonic orientation (i.e., a directive mood impact), and behavior-related judgments, such as general expectancies for outcomes (i.e., an informational mood impact). Thus, informational and directive mood impacts can occur simultaneously if conditions strengthening both impacts are fulfilled. Another study conducted in our laboratory (Gendolla & Kriisken, 2000) addressed joint effects of informational and directive mood impacts on effort mobilization, assessed as CV response. After being induced into a positive or a negative mood with video excerpts, participants performed a memory task that was either easy or difficult. In addition, we manipulated the extent of instrumentality of success for affect regulation. All participants were told that a second phase of the study would involve exposure to pleasant, relaxing music. But half of the participants learned that the prerequisite for being exposed to the elating music would be successful completion of the memory task (high instrumentality). The other participants were informed that they would be exposed to the elat-

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ing music anyway, regardless of their performance (low instrumentality). Accordingly, we expected the directive mood impact to be stronger in the high than in the low instrumentality condition. Applying the directive mood impact to Brehm's energization theory (Brehm & Self, 1989; R. A. Wright & Brehm, 1989), we expected that high instrumentality of success for affect regulation would result in higher maximally justified effort (potential motivation). However, up to this point, actually expended effort was predicted to depend directly on the extent of subjective demand. Subjective demand, in turn, should be affected by informational mood impact (Gendolla et al., 2000; Gendolla & Krusken, 1999, in press). Consequently, we anticipated, for the conditions of low instrumentality, that participants in a negative mood would mobilize more effort in the easy (strong engagement due to subjectively high demand) than in the difficult (disengagement due to subjectively too high demand) condition. Participants in a positive mood were, by contrast, expected to mobilize low effort (as a result of subjectively low demand) at the easy level, but high effort (as a result of subjectively high, but not too high, demand) at the difficult level (e.g., Gendolla & Kriisken, in press). The results were as expected. In the high instrumentality conditions, in which higher effort was justified, we predicted basically the same pattern as in the low instrumentality conditions, because the subjective extent of demand should be identical. Only participants in the negative-mood-difficult condition were anticipated to mobilize much more effort, because high effort due to very high subjective demand was justified only when success was highly instrumental for affect regulation. This is what the results showed. Furthermore, participants' demand appraisals showed main effects of both objective task difficulty and mood, reflecting subjectively higher demand during a negative than a positive mood at each difficulty level. That is, the informational mood impact influenced the level of subjective demand in a mood-congruent manner, and simultaneously the directive mood impact determined the level of maximally justified effort. A second study fully replicated this result.

Evidence for Directive Mood Impact on Behavior The directive mood impact on behavior becomes visible in behavioral preferences to regulate affect. According to the MBM, it depends on both the strength of the hedonic motive and the instrumentality of potential behaviors for affect regulation. Thayer et al. (1994) found individual differences in participants' reports about what they do to regulate a naturally occurring bad mood. These preferences ranged from active (e.g., exercising, going shopping, and drinking alcohol) to passive (e.g., taking a nap and watching TV) behavioral strategies. Accordingly, various acts can be carried out to satisfy the hedonic motive. Zillmann (1988) reached a similar conclusion in his analysis of use of media to regulate negative feelings, and Wegener and Petty (1994) explicitly posited that there are learned contingencies between negative feeling states and releasing behaviors. That is, depending on their personal learning histories, different individuals prefer different specific behaviors for the regulation of their moods. Thus, these behavioral preferences are learned habits rather than mood-specific action tendencies. In this regard, Parrott (1993) posited that some mood regulation strategies are so well learned that they are activated below the level of consciousness. He referred to studies by Parrott and Sabini (1990) that yielded mood-incongruent recall of autobiographical events. Memories recalled by participants in a positive mood were more negative than those recalled by participants in a negative mood. Parrott and Sabini interpreted this finding, which is incompatible with the mood-as-priming view, as representing automatic mood regulation (see also Erber & Erber, 1994; Forgas et al., 1998; Sedikides, 1994). Further support for this assumption stems from Josephson, Singer, and Salovey (1996). These authors found that individuals with low depression scores regulated their negative moods via mood-incongruent recall, whereas persons with high depression scores did not. In terms of the MBM, this means that depression coincides with a weak directive mood impact. The same was demonstrated for individuals with low self-esteem (Smith & Petty, 1995). Mayer and colleagues (e.g., Mayer, Salovey, Gomberg-Kaufman, & Blainey, 1991) posited


that cognitions about mood management are part of the whole mood experience. That is, plans for mood regulation, suppression of thoughts of negative events, and denial are activated simultaneously with the feeling state itself. Accordingly, Mayer and colleagues suggested that hedonic motivation is a mood-immanent phenomenon. Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, and Palfai (1995) differentiated this assumption by considering that there are individual differences in the extent to which people attend to their feelings, the perceived clarity of feelings, and concerns with repairing negative affect (the three components of emotional intelligence). However, all of these assumptions imply that hedonic concerns are sufficient for affect regulative behaviors. But according to the MBM, the mere need to feel good is insufficient to initialize mood regulative behaviors. As outlined earlier, there is a second critical variable: potential behaviors' magnitude of instrumentality for the satisfaction of the hedonic motive. In this regard, it is noteworthy that Catanzaro and Mearas (1990) posited that there are stable individual differences in regard to the magnitude to which people expect affect regulative behaviors to be effective. Most relevant, Kirsch, Mearns, and Catanzaro (1990) found that college students* mood regulation expectancies were associated with more affect regulative behaviors and reduced dysphoria. Given that dysphoria refers to a relatively intense negative mood that should strengthen the hedonic motive, this effect of instrumentality beliefs is in full support of the MBM predictions. It is well conceivable that the prerequisite for a strong directive mood impact on behavior is the opportunity to choose among behavioral alternatives. In the everyday situations investigated by Thayer et al., this was provided. Unfortunately, however, it has seldom been provided in laboratory research. Here, it has been the customary paradigm to investigate mood effects on already-initialized behaviors rather than on behavioral preferences in choice situations. This may explain why there are only a few studies (e.g., Abele, 1992b; Spies, 1990) demonstrating directive mood impacts on behavior under controlled experimental conditions. However, in the psychological literature, there are especially two areas of research producing evidence for directive mood impacts.

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One area is prosocial behavior. The other is achievement behavior.

Directive Mood Impacts on Prosocial Behavior In addition to the impact of a specific emotion—sympathy—on prosocial behavior (e.g., Batson & Shaw, 1991; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990), relatively much research has been conducted on the influence of moods on helping. Carlson, Charlin, and Miller (1988) meta-analyzed evidence for six hypotheses about the mediation of positive mood to prosocial behavior. The compared approaches were focus of attention (e.g., Rosenhan, Salovey, & Hargis, 1981), objective self-awareness (e.g., Berkowitz, 1987), separate processes (e.g., Cunningham, Steinberg, & Grev, 1980), social outlook (e.g., Holloway, Tucker, & Hornstein, 1977), mood maintenance (e.g., Isen & Levin, 1972), and concomitance (e.g., Manucia, Baumann, & Cialdini, 1984). Although the effect sizes of these approaches varied, there was more or less support for all of the models, which supports Isen's (1987) view that helping is generally facilitated during a positive mood. However, all approaches can be subsumed under two processes: informational and directive mood impacts. On the one hand, helping in a positive mood is explicable with a mood-as-priming process. Accordingly, positive moods prime positive associations and, thus, prosocial concepts. The reason could be that prosocial behavior is educated and internalized as something very positive. M. S. Clark and Isen (1982) even posited a "helping node" in people's associative memory network that is activated during a positive mood. According to other approaches dealing with the automaticity of behavior (e.g., Bargh & Barndollar, 1996), the mere activation of this node should increase the likelihood of prosocial behavior. This would be an informational mood impact. But on the other hand, increased helping during a positive mood might reflect a mood maintenance strategy, because the consequence of prosocial behavior can be positive affect. This is the case because of a self-esteem boost: (a) The helping person has done "the right thing" and receives social benefits, and (b) the helping person is usually "superior" to the target person in distress, which provides a facility of

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downward social comparison with resulting positive affect (Gibbons & Gerrard, 1989; Wills, 1981). Thus, helping can be highly instrumental for affect regulation and should be a preferred behavioral alternative if the hedonic motive is relatively strong. However, in addition to evidence for the limitations of a mood-valence-based priming assumption (Niedenthal et al., 1997; Niedenthal & Setterlund, 1994), the mood-as-priming explanation outlined earlier is incompatible with research demonstrating inhibition of prosocial behavior during a positive mood (e.g., Isen & Levin, 1972) and its facilitation during a negative mood (e.g., Baumann, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 1981; Cialdini, Darby, & Vincent, 1973). Such mood incongruencies suggest, rather, that prosocial behavior is sometimes carried out because of its instrumentality for repairing negative affect and maintaining positive affect. In terms of the present framework, this means a directive mood impact on behavior. In this case, the specific action goal individuals pursue is, of course, helping others. But prosocial acts are preferred relative to their alternatives because of their high instrumentality for satisfying the hedonic motive. Nevertheless, a literature review by Carlson and Miller (1987) revealed that a negative mood does not consistently motivate prosocial acts to regulate affect. But this is not at odds with the MBM, because the strength of the hedonic motive is predicted to be affected by mood intensity rather than mood valence. It is well conceivable that negative mood was simply not intense enough to strengthen participants' hedonic motive in some of the studies reviewed by Carlson and Miller. Furthermore, even if a person's hedonic motive is strong, the strength of the directive mood impact depends on potential prosocial acts' magnitude of instrumentality for affect regulation. This instrumentality varies with the hedonic associations and consequences of helping, which are positive in most cases but can also be negative, for instance, when helping requires high emotional, financial, or behavioral resources (cf. Dovidio, 1984). Thus, according to the MBM, it is implausible that a negative mood (even a highly intense one) automatically results in high motivation for affect regulation.

Directive Mood Impacts on Achievement Behavior The second realm in which directive mood impacts on behavior have been investigated relatively frequently is achievement behavior. In parallel fashion to prosocial behavior, individuals can try to maximize positive affect by performing achievement tasks. An experiment by Spies (1990) is instructive here. After participants had been induced into an extremely negative or a so-called neutral mood, they had the opportunity to choose between a task with a hedonic component that allowed coping with their momentary unpleasant feeling state and a hedonically neutral task. Participants in an extremely negative mood preferred the hedonic component task to the hedonically neutral task. By contrast, preferences did not differ in the so-called neutral mood condition. These results are in accordance with the MBM. Participants in an extremely negative—that is, highly intense—mood, whose hedonic motive was strong, showed a clear preference for behaviors that were high in instrumentality for mood repair. This is what is referred to by the directive mood impact on behavior. But participants who were in a so-called neutral—and, thus, less intense—mood state and whose hedonic motive was thus relatively weak showed no preference for mood regulative behaviors. Thus, the Motive X Instrumentality product was smaller in the so-called neutral mood condition than in the negative mood condition. Another study was conducted by Abele (1992a). She found that participants in a positive mood reported higher interest in merely performing and solving tasks, whereas those in a negative mood were more interested in mood regulation and distraction by performance. Thus, depending on their actual mood state, participants reported pursuing two different goals via performing. Those in a bad mood instrumentalized performance for regulating their negative affect, whereas those in a positive mood were interested in performing for the task's sake. These findings are compatible with the results of Matsumoto and Sanders (1988) and Murray, Sujan, Hirt, and Sujan (1990). Also, these authors measured higher task interest—which is conceptually comparable to a strong action orientation (e.g., Kuhl, 1983; Wicklund, 1986)—in positive relative to nega-


tive and "neutral" moods. This may suggest that negative mood is associated with a stronger directive mood impact than is positive mood. But these findings are also explicable as showing an informational mood impact. Research by Pretty and Seligman (1984) suggests that people use affect as information for evaluation of their task interest. These authors found that mood moderates the overjustification effect (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973). Money incentive corrupted task interest during a negative mood but not during a positive mood (see also Abele, 1995). Furthermore, during an unmanipulated mood, the overjustification effect was associated with negative affect. This suggests that high task interest during a positive mood is due to an informational mood impact on the evaluation of task interest rather than to a weak hedonic motive. In a study by Abele (1992b), participants were induced into positive, negative, or "neutral" moods. Subsequently, they performed a verbal creativity test in which they named Utopian situations that were negative or positive in their hedonic tone. Replicating the finding that positive affect facilitates creative problem solving (e.g., Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987; Isen, Johnson, Mertz, & Robinson, 1985), participants in a positive mood named the most situations relative to those in so-called neutral and negative moods. This can be explained by the informational mood impact on task interest judgments outlined earlier. Accordingly, positive mood informed participants that their task interest was high (see Pretty & Seligman, 1984), and consequently they were more engaged and performed better than those in the other mood conditions. Interestingly, however, the number of named associations was lower across all three mood conditions when the associations were negative and higher when they were positive. Relative to participants in the neutral mood condition, participants in a bad mood performed even better when they named positive situations than when they named negative ones. Probably, participants expended more effort when performance facilitated mood regulation. Thus, in addition to a general impairment of performance when the task's hedonic tone was negative and thus allowed neither mood maintenance nor elation, negative mood enhanced performance when the task was high in instrumentality for mood repair. But it impaired performance when

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instrumentality was low. In terms of the MBM, this reflects a directive mood impact on achievement behavior. Another study was conducted by Abele and Beckmann (1992, cited in Abele, 1998). Participants were induced into a positive or a negative mood via feedback about their performance on an achievement task. Later they worked on an anagram task. Between the tasks there was a short break. In one condition, participants were instructed to relax and to select a difficulty level of the anagram task afterward (self-orientation). In the other condition, participants selected the difficulty level immediately after the mood-inducing feedback and received instructions to concentrate on the subsequent anagram task (task orientation). The results showed that selforientation during a positive mood resulted in poorer performance on the anagram task than did task orientation. The opposite effect was observed in the negative mood condition. Here self-orientation resulted in better performance than did task orientation. In terms of the MBM, these results demonstrate a directive mood impact on behavior. Mood was not salient in the task orientation condition, and therefore the hedonic motive was relatively weak. Here only the informational mood impact informed participants in a positive mood that their task interest was relatively high and those in a negative mood that their task interest was relatively low (see Pretty & Seligman, 1984). Consequently, there was better performance in the positive mood condition. In the self-orientation condition, participants* feeling state was salient, and the hedonic motive was therefore relatively strong. But given that the anagram task was neither very pleasant nor unpleasant, performance was more instrumental for repairing a negative mood (distraction from the negative mood) than for maintaining the positive mood (see Wegener & Petty, 1994). Consequently, the directive mood impact was stronger and interest in performance was higher in the self-orientation-negative-mood than in the self-orientation-positive-mood condition. Given further that subjective demand was probably higher during a negative than during a positive mood (e.g., Gendolla et al., 2000; Gendolla & Kriisken, 1999, 2000, in press), participants in the self-orientation-negative-mood condition mobilized more effort than those in the self-

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orientation-positive-mood condition and outperformed them. Research by McFarland and Buehler (1997) also (at least indirectly) supports the MBM prediction that the salience of affect is a determinant of the strength of the hedonic motive. These authors observed that sensitizers (relative to repressors) reported more negative affect after a negative mood induction and recruited more positive memories in a negative than in a so-called neutral mood. In terms of the MBM, this means that the awareness of a feeling state affected the hedonic motive and affect regulative behavior (thinking of something positive). The role of affect awareness was further specified by McFarland and Buehler (1998). Their research suggests that people who focus on their feelings in a reflexive way, but not those who focus on their affect in a ruminative way, show mood-incongruent recall when they are in a negative mood. Given that motivated reasoning and thinking of something positive are customary strategies for regulating negative feeling states (M. S. Clark & Isen, 1982; Forgas et al., 1998; Klinger, 1982; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Roese, 1997; Thayer et al., 1994), this suggests that people who focus on themselves in a reflexive way try to regulate their mood states. In this context, the reflexive self-focus mode means that individuals believe they have control over their feelings, whereas the ruminative mode means they believe that one cannot control one's affect. That is, in terms of the MBM, these two modes of self-focus are confounded with the instrumentality variable. Momentary affect is salient in both cases. Consequently, the hedonic motive should be strong in both selffocus modes. But what differs is the extent of subjective instrumentality of potential mood regulative behaviors. In the reflexive self-focus mode, the person believes that affect regulation is possible. Consequently, the subjective instrumentality of mood regulative behaviors is higher than in the ruminative self-focus mode, in which the person believes that not much can be done in regard to affect regulation. Accordingly, in terms of the MBM, affect regulative remembering in a reflexive self-focus mode represents a directive mood impact on behavior. However, a final note on cognitive strategies for affect regulation seems to be warranted. Although there is evidence that awareness of one's affective state can result in attempts to

regulate affect by means of cognitive strategies, these attempts do not necessarily lead to successful affect regulation. Research by Strack, Schwarz, and Gschneidinger (1985) suggests that thinking of something funny when one is in a bad mood is effective for mood repair only if one thinks about it in a vivid manner. Otherwise, this customary mood regulation strategy can even result in a worse affective state, because funny events are used as a standard of comparison for one's own miserable state (see also McMullen, 1997). The same is likely to happen when the mood-regulating individual lacks cognitive capacity and attempts to regulate mood by suppression of mood-congruent negative thoughts (Wegner, Erber, & Zanakos, 1993). Consequently, motivation of mood regulation does not necessarily lead to success. Relations Between the Mood-Behavior Model and Other Approaches The starting point of the present analysis was the observation that there is no integrative model that explains the available evidence of mood-behavior linkages with a small, but sufficient, number of general theoretical principles. The MBM has been introduced as an attempt to provide such a general framework. As reviewed so far, there is evidence for informational, directive, and simultaneously informational and directive mood impacts on behavior, which is in support of the MBM conceptualization. But given that all of the reviewed research, our own work excepted, was instigated by other theoretical accounts of mood effects on behavior, it seems warranted to highlight the relations between the MBM and other approaches in this research area. I start with cognitive approaches that pertain to my predictions on the informational mood impact on behavior.

Relations to Cognitive Approaches Mood as Information According to Schwarz (1990; Schwarz & Clore, 1988), mood-congruent global judgments are the product of a misattribution of mood, whose source the person is not aware of, to a judgmental issue. That is, mood congruency works because mood becomes object related. Mood "obtains" a source in the sense of "How


do I feel about this issue?" In regard to the explanation of mood congruency in behaviorrelated judgments, the preferred view in the MBM is the mood-and-information-integration approach (Abele & Gendolla, 1999; Abele et al.5 1998; Abele & Petzold, 1994). Accordingly, mood is one piece of information that is integrated with all other available information into a judgment. Although this perspective may seem to come close to the approach of Schwarz (1990; Schwarz & Clore, 1988), there are several important differences. In contrast to the Schwarz model, the mood-and-information-integration perspective explicitly does not posit that mood is used only as diagnostic information in terms of a judgmental heuristic (i.e., in a simplified and not substantial way of information processing). Rather, mood is a piece of information that is always used and integrated into a judgment. Mood is conceptualized as being always more or less informative and as being pragmatically used when other information also is available. The extent to which mood is informative depends, however, on its diagnosticity for the judgment at hand and the amount of other available diagnostic information. In regard to behavior-related judgments, it follows that mood is more informative for evaluative judgments and appraisals (e.g., "How capable do I feel in regard to this task?") than for nonevaluative ones (e.g., "How many items do I have to memorize?"). Furthermore, other available information significantly reduces mood congruency in a judgment if this other information is not mood congruent (Abele & Petzold, 1994). This finding is hardly explicable with the mood-as-information approach, which posits that mood is used as information according to an "all or nothing" principle. That is, evaluative judgments are predicted to rely either on misattributed affect or on other information, but not on both. Furthermore, there is, in contrast to the MBM, no room for a mood-aspriming process in Schwarz's model. Actually, the mood-as-information approach was introduced as an alternative to Bower's (1981) conception. Another critical distinction between the present explanation of mood congruency and the mood-as-information approach refers to the stable motivational implications of mood. According to Schwarz (1990), positive mood informs the organism that everything is alright,

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whereas negative mood informs it that the person-environment relationship is problematic. Consequently, Schwarz posited that information is processed in a heuristic low effort mode during a positive mood but in a substantial, effortful mode during a negative mood. But according to the MBM, mood has no stable motivational implications, and furthermore mood valence is not automatically associated with the mobilization of (mental) effort. Our experiments (Gendolla et al., 2000; Gendolla & Kriisken, 1999, 2000, in press) demonstrated that mood states do not per se involve the mobilization of effort but that mood-congruent demand appraisals mediate between mood and effort mobilization when a person is confronted with a mental demand. These findings speak against the assumption that moods have stable effects on the mobilization of cognitive effort. Rather, effort is mobilized in correspondence to the extent of perceived demand, and mood has an informational impact on these demand appraisals in terms of mood congruency (i.e., higher subjective demand and higher effort during a negative mood and lower subjective demand and lower effort during a positive mood).

Mood as Input The informational mood impact, as conceptualized in the MBM, seems to be most similar to the mood-as-input model of L. L. Martin and colleagues (e.g., L. L. Martin, Achee, et al., 1993). These approaches share the profound idea that mood has no stable motivational implications but that it can nevertheless influence behavior by means of its informational function. However, though there is no conflict between the MBM and the mood-as-input model in this regard, there are critical differences between the approaches. First, the extent to which the finding of decreasing mood congruency with an increasing amount of available information (Abele & Petzold, 1994) is explicable within the mood-as-input framework is unclear. Second, and most critical, the MBM specifies—in contrast to the mood-as-input approach—conditions under which directive mood impacts occur. According to the mood-as-input model, these impacts are rather unlikely to occur, because mood is predicted to have only a highly context-dependent informational impact. This is particularly critical for the role of mood sa-

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lience. According to L. L. Martin and colleagues, a feeling state has to be more or less salient to provide information. To interpret thenfeelings, people must know how they feel. Thus, mood salience is assumed to contribute to the informational effect of mood. This holds also for Schwarz's (1990; Schwarz & Clore, 1988) mood-as-information approach ("How do I feel about it?"). By contrast, the MBM predicts that the effect of mood salience refers to the directive mood impact, because a salient mood state is posited to increase the strength of the hedonic motive. Thus, whereas mood salience is the precondition for an informational mood impact according to the mood-as-input (and the mood-as-information) approach, the MBM predicts that mood salience will increase a person's hedonic interest and refers to the directive rather than the informational mood impact on behavior.

Affect Infusion In the AIM, Forgas (1995) posited processing style prerequisites for the occurrence of moodas-information and mood-as-priming processes. He claimed that the mood-as-information approach outlined by Schwarz (1990; Schwarz & Clore, 1988) holds only when judgments are made in a heuristic processing mode (e.g., when a judgmental issue is of low personal relevance). Accordingly, the differences outlined between the mood-as-information approach and the preferred mood-and-information-integration perspective are also applicable to the AIM. Forgas denied that mood can be used as a piece of information in other ways than misattribution under conditions of heuristic processing, which is clearly at odds with the mood-and-information-integration perspective (Abele & Gendolla, 1999; Abele et al., 1998; Abele & Petzold, 1994) and recent conclusions by Wyer et al. (1999) on the conditions under which mood states serve as diagnostic information. However, when information is not processed heuristically, but substantially (e.g., because a judgment is of high personal relevance), Forgas predicted mood congruency effects via a moodas-priming path (as outlined by Bower, 1981, 1991). This means that mood will not be used as diagnostic information when relatively important behavior-related judgments have to be made. According to the MBM, this will not

be the case. Furthermore, recent developments of the mood-as-priming perspective (e.g., Niedenthal et al., 1997; Wyer et al., 1999), which were instigated by the several failures in attempts to demonstrate increased availability of mood-congruent information, have already been discussed. In the AIM, in contrast to the MBM, these problems have not been considered, and the original (criticized) formulation by Bower is still applied and predicted to work in situations in which people process information "substantially." Furthermore, the AIM predicts that there will be no mood congruency in judgments when individuals choose a motivated processing strategy (i.e., process information with a specific goal, such as affect regulation; Forgas et al., 1998). Consequently, the AIM assumes that informational and directive mood impacts cannot occur simultaneously as posited by the MBM. This assumption is clearly at odds with studies demonstrating that both mood impacts can work simultaneously (e.g., Cunningham, 1988; GendoUa & Kriisken, 2000; Saavedra & Earley, 1991). Still another major difference between the AIM and the MBM is that the AIM posits that mood is either used as diagnostic information (heuristic processing) or makes stored associations accessible (substantial processing). By contrast, the MBM does not make processing style assumptions and predicts that mood is always (more or less) informative itself and that it can also (directly or indirectly) activate knowledge. One consequence is that mood congruency should occur in judgments in absence of indexes of processing style, such as response latencies, which should be shorter in the heuristic than in the substantial processing mode. But in experiments by Abele et al. (1998), mood effects on evaluative judgments occurred in the absence of such processing style indexes. Maybe the most critical difference between the AIM and MBM is what these models attempt to explain. The AIM is a model of how mood affects judgments, whereas the MBM is a model of how mood affects the motivation process and thus has an impact on behavior. One means by which this can occur is the informational mood impact on behavior-related judgments. However, the MBM focuses on behavior and not on the judgment process itself, although, of course, it makes predictions on how mood can provide information.


Mood and Processing Style The MBM also clearly differs from approaches making assumptions about mood and information-processing styles. Ellis and Asbrook (1988) proposed that negative mood is associated with decreased memory capacity, resulting in deficits in incidental learning. However, Hertel and colleagues (Hertel & Hardin, 1990; Hertel & Rude, 1991) produced evidence that mood effects on mobilization of cognitive effort, rather than deficits in memory capacity are responsible for this performance deficit during a negative mood. Interestingly, Mackie and Worth (1991) proposed quite the opposite of Ellis and Asbrook (1988), namely, that positive mood coincides with decreases in cognitive capacity, because positive mood is associated with an abundance of information in memory that is activated in this feeling state. The posited outcome is a heuristic processing style, for instance, when a person in a positive mood reads persuasive messages. However, research by Smith and Shaffer (1991) revealed no evidence for this hypothesis but suggests that motivational processes play a significant role, because the lower elaboration during a positive mood diminished when the personal relevance of the persuasive message was increased. Accordingly, there is not much that speaks for the assumption that negative (Ellis & Asbrook, 1988) or positive (Mackie & Worth, 1991) mood is associated with any reductions in cognitive capacity. Rather, the observed effects on information processing are motivational in that they seem to be due to mood effects on the mobilization of mental effort. The MBM can account for these effects with a process explanation rather than assuming that moods have stable and automatic effects on the mobilization of cognitive effort. Our research on mood effects on effort mobilization (Gendolla et al., 2000; Gendolla & Kriisken, 1999, 2000, in press) suggests that mood has a congruency effect on demand appraisals, which in turn determine effort mobilization (i.e., the informational mood impact), and that facilities for mood regulation determine the maximally justified level of effort (i.e., the directive mood impact).

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Relations to Approaches Considering Cognitive and Motivational Processes The Functional View According to Morris (1992), moods serve as cues for the self-regulatory system in that negative moods signal deficits and positive moods signal satisfaction. Furthermore, Morris claims that moods exist for the sake of signaling states of the self in terms of resources to meet environmental demands. In support of this assumption, Dienstbier (1995) found that positive mood coincides with feelings of energy and preferences for challenging, effortful tasks. Morris's reasoning seems to come very close to the informational mood impact on behavior as posited in the MBM. In addition, our own research has demonstrated that moods determine effort mobilization by affecting the extent of perceived demand (Gendolla et al., 2000; Gendolla & Kriisken, 1999, 2000, in press), which may also be interpreted as support for Morris's hypothesis. However, there is one very critical difference between the MBM and Morris's functional view. Similar to the cognitive tuning hypothesis posited by Schwarz (1990), Morris's assumptions imply that moods have a stable motivational function, to allow behavioral adjustments by informing the organism about relationships between actual demand and accessible resources. I, too, posit that people use their moods—under specific conditions—as information for behavioral adjustments. But I also believe that this informational mood impact is highly context dependent in that it is critical for what implicit judgment mood is used as information, as clearly demonstrated by L. L. Martin, Ward, et al. (1993). Mood is not only informative for appraising one's resources in the face of demands. I posit that rnood is informative for all evaluative behavior-related judgments. Furthermore, I am not sure whether mood has any real function. It is possible that moods, with their various origins, are just white noise in the central nervous system that exists because the consciousness-related brain systems, where affect is experienced, are phylogenetically young and thus imperfect (cf. LeDoux, 1996). However, although Morris's and my assumptions are concordant in regard to the idea that mood can affect behavior-related judgments, the MBM predictions on the process that determines the

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strength of the informational mood impact clearly exceed those of Morris's functional hypothesis. Furthermore, although Morris assumes that moods are involved in hedonic motivation, his approach is relatively silent on how this directive mood impact works and interacts with the informational mood impact.

Affect-Action Sequence According to the affect-action sequences model of Salovey and Rodin (1985), mood states influence cognitions about the self, specifically self-evaluations. These cognitions are, in turn, predicted to mediate between mood states and social behavior that is carried out to maintain positive affect or reduce negative affect. In this regard, research by Berkowitz (1987) demonstrated that helping behavior is affected by the amount of positive thought about the self rather than by mood itself. The highest amount of positive thought about the self was, in turn, observed during a positive mood under the condition of high self-awareness (cf. Duval & Wicklund, 1972). The affectaction sequence model makes predictions about a process involving both informational (cognitions about the self) and directive (social behavior for the sake of affect regulation) mood impacts. But one clear difference in regard to the MBM is that Salovey and Rodin do not assume that the informational and directive mood impacts work independently from one another. According to the MBM, they do. Another difference is that the predictions on which process determines mood congruency in self-evaluations and the strength of hedonic motivation are more detailed and comprehensive in the MBM. The affect-action sequence model relies on a mood-as-priming process to explain its informational mood impact (i.e., influencing cognitions about the self). The MBM considers this process as well but accounts for the empirical fact that people use their moods as diagnostic information for judgments.

Relations to Motivational Approaches The MBM differs also from previous models that highlight the impact of mood on behavior in terms of hedonic motivation. In this area, fewer approaches have been formulated than in that of mood effects on cognitive processes, and most

of them have highlighted only one of the two variables that are critical according to the MBM: the hedonic motive and behaviors' instrumentality for affect regulation. According to my evaluation, this is the major reason for the mixed and, in part, equivocal evidence for mood effects on active affect regulation. The MBM accounts for the fact that individuals are not always preoccupied with affect regulation and predicts when they are. Furthermore, whereas other models focus on one behavioral domain, such as pro-social or achievement behavior, the MBM posits general principles that apply to any behavioral realm.

Hedonic Deficits In contrast to the MBM, most other approaches assume an asymmetry in the hedonically motivating effects of positive and negative moods. The negative-state-relief model of Cialdini and colleagues, for example (e.g., Schaller & Cialdini, 1990), posits that negative mood represents an affective deficit and that it therefore motivates mood repair through hedonic reward providing prosocial behavior. Positive mood is assumed to result in a much weaker hedonic motivation, because people in this state already feel as they want to (i.e., the hedonic motive is satisfied). The same holds for the separate-process model of Cunningham and colleagues (Cunningham, Shaffer, Barbee, Wolff, & Kelley, 1990; Cunningham et al., 1980). Here it is assumed that a negative mood is accompanied by selfish hedonic interests, resulting in attempts at mood repair, whereas positive mood is bound up with social interests. That is, both models predict an asymmetry in the strength of hedonic motivation depending on mood valence. This view is implicitly or explicitly shared by several other approaches highlighting the regulation of negative moods (e.g., Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Taylor, 1991; Thayer et al., 1994; Zillmann, 1988). However, according to the MBM, the strength of the hedonic motive does not depend on mood valence. Rather, it depends on mood intensity, mood salience, and the situational context a person is in. According to the present view, this is supported by evidence that people are also interested in mood maintenance and not only in mood repair. That is, the MBM makes different predictions on the conditions that strengthen


individuals' hedonic motive, and it predicts furthermore that hedonic interests alone are not sufficient to instigate mood regulative behaviors. According to the MBM, mood valence affects the instrumentality variable rather than the hedonic motive, because neutral behaviors can be mood repairing during a negative mood but not mood maintaining during a positive mood.

Hedonic Contingencies The most explicit opposite to motivational approaches that focus on hedonic deficits as the instigator of affect regulative behaviors is the hedonic-contingency model proposed by Wegener and Petty (1994). These authors argued that individuals in a positive mood are more sensitive to affect regulative facilities than are persons in a negative mood, because nearly anything can regulate a negative mood merely by distraction, but only positive activities can maintain, or even still improve, a positive mood. In the MBM, this assumption is considered by acknowledging that more behaviors are instrumental for affect regulation during a negative than during a positive mood. That is, in terms of the MBM, the hedonic-contingency model refers to behaviors' instrumentality for mood regulation. But instrumentality per se does not result in affect regulative attempts. What is critical is the interaction between the hedonic motive and instrumentality of behavior for affect regulation. Thus, the MBM makes more specific predictions on the conditions of the initiation of mood regulative behaviors than do approaches that focus merely on the need for affect regulation (Cialdini et al., 1973; Cunningham et al., 1980) or the incentive of mood regulative acts (Wegener & Petty, 1994). Conclusion The starting point of the present analysis was the assumption that moods can affect behavior even though they do not have stable motivational implications. According to the MBM, they can do so through their informational impact on behavior-related judgments and appraisals and their directive impact on behavior in compliance with a hedonic motive. Most previous approaches have analyzed mood-behavior linkages from one of these rather exclusive per-

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spectives, in terms of cognitive processes or hedonic motivation. Previous cognitive analyses shared the implicit assumption that information processing will more or less automatically bear action, and in previous motivational analyses there was a basic agreement that hedonic motivation is a general principle and sufficient to elicit affect regulative behavior. The MBM offers a more differentiated view and considers both mood effects on behavior-related judgments and hedonic interests. Most relevant, the MBM predicts under which conditions each process will work. Furthermore, the MBM offers a set of alternative explanations for findings that refer to moods as motivational states. Whereas those approaches assume a close linkage between mood and the mobilization of resources, the MBM tries to explain how resources are, in fact, mobilized. However, the most practical aspect of the MBM is that it can explain all of the available, often equivocal, empirical evidence on mood-behavior linkages with five basic postulates, whereas other models can explain only small parts of this literature. This suggests that the MBM is a very suitable account of empirically demonstrated impacts of moods on human action. In addition, new hypotheses can easily be generated from this model to allow still deeper insight into how moods influence behavior. References Abele, A. (1992a). Alltagsvorstellungen iiber den Einfluss positiver und negativer Stimmung auf die aufgabenbezogene Motivation [Everyday beliefs about the impact of positive and negative mood on task-related motivation]. Zeitschrift fur Experimentelle und Angewandte Psychologie, 39, 345371. Abele, A. (1992b). Positive and negative mood influences on creativity: Evidence for asymmetrical effects. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 23, 203221. Abele, A. (1995). Stimmung und Leistung [Mood and performance]. Gbttingen, Germany: Hogrefe. Abele, A. (1998), Motivationale Mediatoren von Emotionseinflussen auf die Leistung: Ein vernachlassigtes Forschungsgebiet [Motivational mediators of the emotional impact on achievement: A neglected research topic]. In S. Jerusalem & R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion, Motivation, Leistung (pp. 31-49). Gottingen, Germany: Hogrefe. Abele, A., & Gendolla, G. H. E. (1999). Satisfaction judgments in positive and negative moods: Effects

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Received August 31, 1999 Revision received March 24, 2000 Accepted March 27, 2000