1. Running head: MOOD AND JUDGMENT
Like It or Not: The Effect of Mood on Judgment
Hallie Allen, Mallory Bradford, Gwen Knight, Sylvia Lovato, Ryan Owens, Melyssa Wursten
Southern Utah University
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether video induced positive or negative mood had
an effect on perception and judgment of neutral objects: namely, if subjects liked an object;
would buy it; and how much they would be willing to pay for it. Participants consisted of 20
male and 36 female undergraduate students from Southern Utah University. The results show
that the mood states did not have a significant effect on the liking, buying or amount an
individual would pay for an object. The videos did predict different affective outcomes, but not
general mood.
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Like It Or Not: The Effect of Mood on Judgment
On any particular day individuals experience a wide range of sensations that affect their
perceptions. Feelings-as-information theory suggests that information is gleaned from subjective
experiences including emotions, metacognition, physiological cues and mood, which in turn can
influence individual judgment (Schwarz, 2010). A common question asked by individuals when
using feelings to devise judgments is, “How do I feel about this?” (Schwarz, 2010 p. 5). The
postulation of this question indicates that individuals become aware of their current affect, and
use that information to make judgments. In addition, when individuals attribute their current
affect to an irrelevant source, the information from that affect is disregarded when making
judgments. Feelings, then, are used as information when individuals perceive the significance of
the judgment in relation to their feelings, and are not confused by what is causing their feelings
(Schwarz, 2010). The focus of this study will examine how mood as information influences
judgment.
The meaning of the word mood has various interpretations and a broad spectrum of use
(Gardner, 1985). “Moods may be distinguished from emotions, which, in contrast, are usually
more intense, attention-getting, and tied to a specific behavior” (Clark and Isen, 1982 p. 282 as
cited in Gardner, 1985). Individuals tend to be more aware of their emotions; whereas awareness
of mood can be elusive. For the purpose of this study, mood will be described per Gardner’s
definition as individuals’ perceptions of their affective states (Gardner, 1985). How then, can
mood be used to influence judgment?
Evaluation of products is one area often impacted by an individual’s mood state (Noda et
al, 2007). According to Noda et al (2007), consumer psychologists have been interested in the
relationship between mood and product evaluation. Empirical support for this relationship exists
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as is exemplified by a study that found “watching a pleasant film resulted in a more favorable
evaluation for a new beverage” (Dommermuch & Millard, 1967, p. 403 as cited in Noda et al,
2007). In addition, Gardner (1985) found individuals’ moods will bias their judgments;
specifically their judgment will be congruent with their current mood.
Although many studies have been done concerning the effects of mood on consumer
behavior, advertisers and merchandisers may continue to benefit from additional research linking
mood and product evaluation. This study addresses the hypothesis that a negative or positive
mood state induced by a video clip will affect individual judgment concerning the evaluation of
neutral objects; namely, if an individual liked or disliked the object, if the individual would buy
the object, and how much the individual would pay for the object. It was predicted from the
previous research that individuals in a positive mood state would evaluate the objects more
favorably than those in a negative mood state (Gardner, 1985).
Method
Participants
Undergraduate students from Southern Utah University consisting of 36 females and 20
males participated in the study. The age range of these students was 18-37 years of age, with a
mean age of 20.71 and a standard deviation of 3.571. Some of these students were recruited
from the Psychology 1010 classes and received credit for participating in the study. Others
participated without receiving any compensation.
Materials
A survey was developed using Qualtrics online survey software. The survey consisted of
informed consent and instructions for completing the various sections of the survey. Participants
viewed one of two randomly assigned video clips accessed from YouTube: Jeff Dunham, Spark
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of Insanity and Peanut and CNN; Al-Awlaki threatens America. The Needs for Cognition Scale
followed (Cacioppo et al, 1984). Participants viewed and rated six neutral objects taken from the
International Affective Picture System (Lang et al, 2005). Following rating of the pictures,
participants completed the PANAS-X Scale (Watson et al, 1988). The survey was accessed via
computers located in a computer lab located on the campus of Southern Utah University. Each
participant was assigned a personal computer and was fitted with headphones.
Procedure
This study used a 2x1 between subjects design. Participants were recruited via the SUU
Psychology Research Participation Experiment Management System and by a flyer passed out to
students prior to Psychology 1010 classes. Others were recruited through an on campus sorority
through personal invitation. The Qualtrics survey was administered in the computer lab. Each
participant took the survey on an individual computer and was fitted with headphones.
Participants were told in the informed consent that their answers would be anonymous and were
not given any information concerning the purpose of the survey. After agreeing to the informed
consent, they were instructed that they would be viewing a video clip and that they would be
asked a question relating to the clip later in the survey. This instruction was included to
encourage engagement in viewing the clip.
The flow of the survey randomly assigned the participants to view one of two video clips.
These clips were accessed from YouTube. Previous research studies have used video clips to
induce mood. A study by Verleur et al (2007) used clips to induce a positive and negative mood
and a study by Schmid and Mast (2010) used clips to induce a happy and sad mood. The clips
that were chosen for this study were not pilot-tested, but seemed to fit criteria previously
established by the aforementioned studies in that comedy was used to induce a positive mood
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(Verleur et al, 2007). In an additional study by Small et al (2006) terrorism was used to induce a
negative mood through anger. Both clips used in this study were similar in length. The clip used
to induce positive mood was Jeff Dunham, Spark of Insanity, Peanut (Dunham, 2008). This clip
was 2:26 seconds in length. The negative clip was Al-Awlaki Threatens America (CNN, 2010).
It was 2:11 seconds in length.
Previous research on mood has shown that a short distraction or delay is needed for the
effects of mood to emerge as exemplified in the research on Terror Management Theory
(Pyszcznski et al, 1999). Based on this research, the Needs for Cognition Scale (Cacioppo et al,
1984) was completed by the participants. This scale was not scored for the purpose of this study,
but was used only as a distraction to allow the effects of mood to emerge.
Six neutral pictures taken from the International Affective Picture System (Lang et al,
2005) were then presented sequentially and the participants were asked to answer three fixed
choice questions per picture. The first question was “How much do you like or dislike this
object?’. The answers were presented on a 5 point Likert scale with number 1 labeled “dislike
extremely” to number 5, “like extremely”. The second question was “How willing would you be
to buy this object?” Answers were again presented on a 5 point Likert scale with number 1
labeled as “extremely unwilling” to number 5, “extremely willing”. The last question was “How
much would you be willing to pay for this object?”. A sliding scale ranging from $0 to $50 was
presented with this question and participants were asked to indicate the dollar amount.
The PANAS X Scale (Watson, et al, 1988) was then presented to assess mood. This
consisted of 60 words and phrases describing feelings and emotions and participants were asked
to rate how they were currently feeling at that time on a Likert scale of 1 to 5, with 1 indicating
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very slightly or not at all to 5 indicating extreme. Examples of these words included cheerful
and disgusted. Chronbach’s Alpha was run for this scale resulting in .938 reliability.
Participants were then asked to rate the video that they watched earlier on a sliding scale
which ranged from “very negative” to “very positive”. This measure was included as a follow-
up question to the instruction to carefully watch the video because a question would later be
asked concerning it.
Demographic information including sex and age was then requested from participants and
they were thanked for participating in the survey. This procedure was all presented on the
Qualtrics survey software.
Results
An Pearson’s Correlation was conducted to evaluate the hypothesis that a negative or
positive mood state induced by a video clip will affect the individual judgment concerning the
evaluation of neutral objects; namely, if an individual liked or disliked the object, if the
individual would by the object, and how much the individual would pay for the object. The
results were not significant for overall mood (positive mood-negative mood) for liking, r(55), =
-.072, p=.592 (PLACE FIGURE 1 HERE), overall mood for buying, r(55), = -.139, p=.301
(PLACE FIGURE 2 HERE), overall mood for paying, r(55), = .082, p=.543 (PLACE FIGURE 3
HERE), the results did not support the research hypothesis. The r values are not significant;
therefore, there seems to be no relationship between mood and individual judgment.
Even though there was no significant result overall, some significant results in the study
were found. An independent-samples t test was run to evaluate the effect of the videos on
individual’s mood states. The test for negative mood was not significant, t(55), = -.13, p=.89, the
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test for positive mood was significant, t(55), = 2.85, p=.006. This suggests that although the
negative video did not seem to affect individual’s mood, the positive video did.
An ANOVA was run comparing the effect of the videos by sex. It was found that men
(M =3.7) scored higher on both positive and negative mood states than the women (M = 2.9),
(INSERT TABLE 1 HERE). A main effect of group video was observed, F(1,55) = 10.04,
p=.003.
An independent-samples t test was run to evaluate the effect of overall mood on the
scales from the PANAS X. Significant results were found for serenity, t(55), = 5.31, p = .00,
basic negative affect (sadness, guilt, hostility, fear), t(55), = -2.31, p= .03, and basic positive
affect (joviality, self-assurance, attentiveness), t(55), =8.81,p = .00. These results seem to
indicate that the overall mood state induced by the videos did have an effect on the above
mentioned mood measurements.
Discussion
The results of this study did not support the original hypothesis that a negative or
positive mood state induced by a video clip would affect individual judgment concerning product
evaluation. It was predicted from the previous research that mood does influence judgment.
Gardner (1985) found that moods bias judgment, specifically that the judgment will be congruent
with the mood state. Another study conducted by Siemer and Reisenzein (1998) similarly found
that mood states influence evaluation of judgments. In the present study, overall mood did not
affect judgment contrary to the above-referenced findings.
Although the hypothesis was not supported, an interesting result showed that men scored
higher on overall mood, implying that men were more affected by the mood manipulation than
women. An article by Denkova (2012) asserts that men are less likely than women to develop
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negative mood states. Women are more likely to develop depression and anxiety. According to
this same study, men had the tendency to recall and reexamine their positive memories more than
women. This may account for men’s increased overall positive affect. Based on the stereotypical
belief that women are more emotionally involved in their surroundings than their male
counterparts, these results are surprising in that stereotypes would imply that women would be
more affected by the induced mood states. Future studies may benefit from continued research
on this intriguing result.
The results show another interesting finding. Even though there was not a significant
result found in overall mood, some significance was found for particular moods namely:
serenity, basic negative affect (sadness, guilt, hostility and fear) as well as basic positive affect
(joviality, self-assurance and attentiveness). One possible explanation for these findings would
be that different types of moods are more easily identified. Assessing such a wide variety of
mood states in contrast to focusing on specific moods, may have contributed to the insignificant
results found in this study (Gardner, 1985). It would appear that some moods when evaluated by
themselves or in small groups may yield significant results because these moods can be clearly
indentified. Future studies may want to focus on specific rather than a plethora of moods.
Research has shown that anger is a common emotion felt in regards to terrorism (Small,
Lerner, and Fischhoff, 2006). Based on this assumption, the video chosen for the present study
was selected to induce a negative mood state through anger. The results show that the
participants in the current study were not angry, but instead seemed to exhibit feelings of fear
and hostility. A possible reason for this difference could be different perceptions of the stimuli
by individuals as well as their subjective experiences. One way to overcome this flaw in future
research is to utilize a pilot tested video.
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A limitation of the present study lies in the homogeneous sample that was used.
Recruitment mainly focused on Psychology 1010 students and other Southern Utah University
students. This population may have limited the results due to the fact that some of the students
may have only participated in the study to obtain credit for their class. Another possible
limitation in using this sample could have been that the participants did not self-report
accurately. According to a textbook written by Rosnow and Rosenthal (2008), even though self-
report measures have been used in behavioral research for decades, these types of measures have
their limitations. One of these limitations is that self-reported information may not always be
valid and reliable. This occurs when individuals have a difficult time discerning self-awareness
and separating themselves from their current environment (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977 as cited in
Rosnow and Rosenthal, 2008). This factor could have played a role when applied to the
participants of the present study. Participants may not have been engaged as they participated in
the study due to distractions of student life. It is possible that these participants failed to view
research as important and therefore did not fully invest in the survey.
Lack of a control condition presents another plausible limitation to the design of the
present study. This study utilized two experimental conditions, one positive and one negative. A
control condition, consisting of participants that viewed a neutral pilot tested video, would have
allowed for comparison between the experimental groups, which may have altered the findings.
Mood induction and consumer behavior will continue to capture the interest of consumer
psychologists, marketers and advertisers. Future research will most likely be needed to design
strategies to influence consumer behaviors in a highly competitive market. Future research may
also be of benefit to consumers, to increase awareness regarding manipulation of their consumer
behaviors.
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