Mood congruence

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Mood congruence is the consistency between a person's emotional state with the broader situations and circumstances being experienced by the persons at that time. By contrast, mood incongruence occurs when the individual's reactions or emotional state appear to be in conflict with the situation. In the context of psychosis, hallucinations and delusions may be considered mood congruent (such as feelings of personal inadequacy, guilt, or worthlessness during a bipolar disorder depressive episode) or incongruent.[ medical citation needed ]

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Background and theorists

An important consideration to the difference between mood congruence and mood dependent (or state-dependent) memory is the determination that one cannot make accurate assumptions about the emotional state of a memory during the encoding process. Therefore, the memory that is recalled is not dependent on the affective state during encoding. [1] Another important difference is that there are multiple memories that can be recalled while in particular mood states that go across contexts and cues that may or may not recall only one specific memory.

Gordon Bower

An example of this is demonstrated through a theory proposed by Gordon Bower called the associative network theory of feeling effects. Bower's theory explains the multiple associations of memory congruence within the paradigm of the nodes of the semantic memory network. The associative network theory of feeling effects explains how emotions are connected to many different words that represent the given emotion and represent different meanings for different individuals. [1] Like with semantic memory networks, the nodes that represent particular emotions are triggered by the words that invoke that emotion. For instance, the word 'dog' can trigger different emotional nodes that represent different word strings and meaningful associations based on different and individual experiences. For a person who has only had positive interactions with the word 'dog', the person would subsequently connect to the emotional nodes that represented positive meanings such as dog = pet = happiness in childhood. [1]

Therefore, Bower's theory determined that not only are particular words linked to other words or phrases that represented similar affects, but that emotions in themselves had their own representative nodes distinct to their affective nature within the semantic memory network. The existence of distinct affective nodes thus explains how multiple positive or negative connotations can be conjured from memory when stimuli is presented that is of negative or positive valance. [1] The significance of how positive or negative associations and their represented meanings in the semantic memory networks of individuals who experience the effects of memory congruence has been demonstrated in various word association studies in which the common methodology is to take samples of individuals that represent both positive, negative and neutral affective states and determine which words they recall most when presented with words representing both positive and negative connotations. In these studies the results more often than not represented the findings that the sample of participants representing positive mood states recalled more positively connoted words, and those who represented the negatively affected group recalled more negatively connoted words. However, an interesting portion of the studies were the groups that represented the neutral group that neither had feelings of negativity or positivity. These groups recalled more positive words than negative words. [1]

Another aspect of Bower's theory in mood-congruence in memory is that the rate of occurrence of particular emotionally represented nodes may become implicitly primed. Even if an individual is not paying full attention to the event in which the affective priming had occurred. [2] Affective memory nodes are then able to connect to a further multitude of inferred or generalized meaning where the congruent recall may not be of a specific autobiographical event. [3] The recall may instead form a generalized representation or prime the associations of future episodes or learning to be particularly positively or negatively biased. The priming explanation also gives relevance to the idea that those who are depressed recall more negatively congruent memories than those who are not depressed. [4] The semantic memory paradigm also adds representational meaning to the theories of eye-witness testimony and false memories. In memory congruence of current emotional states to memory, one may not remember details of situation due to a high level of emotional arousal. This is where the generalization of previously primed connections 'fill in the gaps' of these details to form misrepresented or false memories. [2]

Theory of emotional valence

Conversely, there are theories of mood-congruency in memory recall that explain the instances and studies that represent incongruences. One such theory is the circumflex model assumption, or the theory of emotional valence. [2] The theory of valence in regards to mood-congruency and memory recall is that the nature (positive or negative) of the emotion at encoding is congruent with the nature of the emotion in which the memory is to be recalled. The theory of valence has had both significant and contradictory findings. [2] The significant findings are similar to those that are represented in the studies mentioned previously within the paradigm of semantic memory. The contradiction of the valence theory is in studies where the moods of the participants were found to represent mood-incongruence. The incongruence is especially particular in findings of valence asymmetry, in which those who were in a current negative mood recalled more positively associated words or memories. [1] A proposed reason for this occurrence is that the individuals who are recalling positive memories while in negatively affective states are confounded by their personal attitudes, levels of self-esteem and their world views. Therefore, it has been found that samples of individuals who have higher levels of self-esteem or more positively world views tend to remember more positive events even when in a negatively affective state. These people are able to thus control their own retrieval processes than individuals who have lower self-esteem or negative world views. [1]

Theory of categorical conception

In opposition to the conundrum of the valence theories of mood-congruence, proponents such as Paula Niedenthal propose a theory of categorical conception. The theory of categorical conception argues that mood-congruence of current affective states and memory recall are subject to attentional strengths and deficits in category matching. [1] Instead of all emotions being either negative or positive, as represented in the theory of valence, emotions are seen as distinct categories. The theory of categorical conception assumes that an individual's current affective state determines what they pay attention to. The attention can be implicitly or explicitly encoded. [3] For instance, if an individual is sad, they will pay more attention to the aspects of their environment that are congruent with sadness such as melancholy or dreary weather. Therefore, if someone is frequently depressed, they are more likely to pay attention to representations of their depression and create a larger memory repertoire of depressed memories than happy memories. Being that the person has a higher number of encoded memories that have negative or sad connotations, they are then more likely to experience a higher level of mood congruent memories than more happy memories. [1]

Social psychology connection

Moreover, in social psychology, "mood congruency" refers to a cognitive mechanism that explains a wide variety of mood effects in which there is a match in affective valence between people's mood and their responses. [5] Cognitive therapy pays special attention to mood congruence due to the use of mood repair strategies, which are meant to shift an individual from a negative mood to a positive one.

Examples:

Mood Congruency is strongest when people try to recall personally meaningful episodes, because such events were most likely to be colored by their moods. [1]

Related Research Articles

In psychology, a mood is an affective state. In contrast to emotions or feelings, moods are less specific, less intense and less likely to be provoked or instantiated by a particular stimulus or event. Moods are typically described as having either a positive or negative valence. In other words, people usually talk about being in a good mood or a bad mood. There are many different factors that influence mood, and these can lead to positive or negative effects on mood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Affect (psychology)</span> Experience of feeling or emotion

Affect, in psychology, is the underlying experience of feeling, emotion, attachment, or mood. It encompasses a wide range of emotional states and can be positive or negative. Affect is a fundamental aspect of human experience and plays a central role in many psychological theories and studies. It can be understood as a combination of three components: emotion, mood, and affectivity. In psychology, the term affect is often used interchangeably with several related terms and concepts, though each term may have slightly different nuances. These terms encompass: emotion, feeling, mood, emotional state, sentiment, affective state, emotional response, affective reactivity, disposition. Researchers and psychologists may employ specific terms based on their focus and the context of their work.

Self-referential encoding is a method of organizing information in one's memory in which one interprets incoming information in relation to oneself, using one's self-concept as a background. Examples include being able to attribute personality traits to oneself or to identify recollected episodes as being personal memories of the past. The implications of self-referential processing are evident in many psychological phenomena. For example, the "cocktail party effect" notes that people attend to the sound of their names even during other conversation or more prominent, distracting noise. Also, people tend to evaluate things related to themselves more positively. For example, people tend to prefer their own initials over other letters. The self-reference effect (SRE) has received the most attention through investigations into memory. The concepts of self-referential encoding and the SRE rely on the notion that relating information to the self during the process of encoding it in memory facilitates recall, hence the effect of self-reference on memory. In essence, researchers have investigated the potential mnemonic properties of self-reference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reminiscence bump</span> Memory phenomenon related to human aging

The reminiscence bump is the tendency for older adults to have increased or enhanced recollection for events that occurred during their adolescence and early adulthood. It was identified through the study of autobiographical memory and the subsequent plotting of the age of encoding of memories to form the lifespan retrieval curve.

The negativity bias, also known as the negativity effect, is a cognitive bias that, even when positive or neutral things of equal intensity occur, things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things. In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person's behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative. The negativity bias has been investigated within many different domains, including the formation of impressions and general evaluations; attention, learning, and memory; and decision-making and risk considerations.

The Affect infusion model (AIM) is a theoretical model in the field of human psychology. Developed by social psychologist Joseph Paul Forgas in the early 1990s, it attempts to explain how affect impacts one's ability to process information. A key assertion of the AIM is that the effects of affect tend to be exacerbated in complex situations that demand substantial cognitive processing. In simpler words, as situations become more complicated and unanticipated, mood becomes more influential in driving evaluations and responses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Negative affectivity</span> Personality variable

Negative affectivity (NA), or negative affect, is a personality variable that involves the experience of negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness. Low negative affectivity is characterized by frequent states of calmness and serenity, along with states of confidence, activeness, and great enthusiasm.

Autobiographical memory (AM) is a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual's life, based on a combination of episodic and semantic memory. It is thus a type of explicit memory.

In psychology, context-dependent memory is the improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. In a simpler manner, "when events are represented in memory, contextual information is stored along with memory targets; the context can therefore cue memories containing that contextual information". One particularly common example of context-dependence at work occurs when an individual has lost an item in an unknown location. Typically, people try to systematically "retrace their steps" to determine all of the possible places where the item might be located. Based on the role that context plays in determining recall, it is not at all surprising that individuals often quite easily discover the lost item upon returning to the correct context. This concept is heavily related to the encoding specificity principle.

Emotion can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events.

Affect measures are used in the study of human affect, and refer to measures obtained from self-report studies asking participants to quantify their current feelings or average feelings over a longer period of time. Even though some affect measures contain variations that allow assessment of basic predispositions to experience a certain emotion, tests for such stable traits are usually considered to be personality tests.

Paula M. Niedenthal is a social psychologist currently working as a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She also completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she received a Bachelor's in Psychology. She then received her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan before becoming a faculty member of the departments of Psychology at Johns Hopkins University and Indiana University. Until recently, she served as the Director of Research in the National Centre for Scientific Research at the Université Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand France. The majority of Niedenthal's research focuses on several levels of analysis of emotional processes, this would include emotion-cognition interaction and representational models of emotion. Niedenthal has authored more than 80 articles and chapters, and several books. Niedenthal is a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Memory gaps and errors refer to the incorrect recall, or complete loss, of information in the memory system for a certain detail and/or event. Memory errors may include remembering events that never occurred, or remembering them differently from the way they actually happened. These errors or gaps can occur due to a number of different reasons, including the emotional involvement in the situation, expectations and environmental changes. As the retention interval between encoding and retrieval of the memory lengthens, there is an increase in both the amount that is forgotten, and the likelihood of a memory error occurring.

Mood dependence is the facilitation of memory when mood at retrieval is identical to the mood at encoding. When one encodes a memory, they not only record sensory data, they also store their mood and emotional states. An individual's present mood thus affects the memories that are most easily available to them, such that when they are in a good mood they recall good memories. The associative nature of memory also means that one tends to store happy memories in a linked set. Unlike mood-congruent memory, mood-dependent memory occurs when one's current mood resembles their mood at the time of memory storage, which helps to recall the memory. Thus, the likelihood of remembering an event is higher when encoding and recall moods match up. However, it seems that only authentic moods have the power to produce these mood-dependent effects.

Mood repair strategies offer techniques that an individual can use to shift their mood from general sadness or clinical depression to a state of greater contentment or happiness. A mood repair strategy is a cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal psychological tool used to affect the mood regulation of an individual. Various mood repair strategies are most commonly used in cognitive therapy. They are commonly assigned as homework by therapists in order to help positively impact individuals who are experiencing dysphoria or depression. However, these tools can also be used for individuals experiencing temporary unwanted moods. Many factors go into the effectiveness of mood repair strategies on an individual ranging from the client's self-esteem to their experience with the strategy being used. Even the way the mood repair strategy is presented may have an effect on that strategy's ability to improve mood.

The fading affect bias, more commonly known as FAB, is a psychological phenomenon in which memories associated with negative emotions tend to be forgotten more quickly than those associated with positive emotions. FAB only refers to the feelings one has associated with the memories and not the content of the memories themselves. Early research studied FAB retrospectively, or through personal reflection, which brought about some criticism because retrospective analysis can be affected by subjective retrospective biases. However, new research using non-retrospective recall studies have found evidence for FAB, and the phenomenon has become largely accepted.

The neurocircuitry that underlies executive function processes and emotional and motivational processes are known to be distinct in the brain. However, there are brain regions that show overlap in function between the two cognitive systems. Brain regions that exist in both systems are interesting mainly for studies on how one system affects the other. Examples of such cross-modal functions are emotional regulation strategies such as emotional suppression and emotional reappraisal, the effect of mood on cognitive tasks, and the effect of emotional stimulation of cognitive tasks.

Overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) is an inability to retrieve specific memories from one's autobiographical memory. Instead, general memories are recalled, such as repeated events or events occurring over broad periods. For example, when asked to recall a happy event, a person who exhibits OGM may say, "when I was on vacation last month" instead of remembering a single incident, such as, "my high school graduation." Research shows a correlation between OGM and certain mental illnesses, such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Kindness priming is an affect-dependent cognitive effect in which subjects will display a positive affect following exposure to kindness.

In cognitive psychology, the affect-as-information hypothesis, or 'approach', is a model of evaluative processing, postulating that affective feelings provide a source of information about objects, tasks, and decision alternatives. A goal of this approach is to understand the extent of influence that affect has on cognitive functioning. It has been proposed that affect has two major dimensions, namely affective valence and affective arousal, and in this way is an embodied source of information. Affect is thought to impact three main cognitive functions: judgement, thought processing and memory. In a variety of scenarios, the influence of affect on these processes is thought to be mediated by its effects on attention. The approach is thought to account for a wide variety of behavioural phenomena in psychology.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Berkowitz, Leonard (2000). Causes and consequences of feelings. West Nyack, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press. pp. 67–95.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Fiedler, K.; Hutter, M. (2013). "Memory and emotion". In Timothy J. Perfect; D. Stephen Lindsay (eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Applied Memory. pp. 145–161. doi:10.4135/9781446294703.n9.
  3. 1 2 Baddeley, Alan; Eysenck, Michael W.; Anderson, Michael C. (2009). Memory (Reprinted ed.). New York: Psychology Press. pp. 178–9. ISBN   978-1-84872-001-5.
  4. ↑ Howard, P. J. (2006). The owner's manual for the brain (3rd ed.). Austin, Texas: Bard Press. pp. 551–560.
  5. ↑ Mayer, John D.; Gaschke, Yvonne N.; Braverman, Debra L.; Evans, Temperance W. (July 1992). "Mood-congruent judgment is a general effect". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 63 (1): 119–132. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.63.1.119. ISSN   1939-1315.
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