Mood (psychology) - Positive Mood

Positive Mood

Positive mood can be caused by many different aspects of life as well as have certain effects on people as a whole. Good mood is usually considered a state without an identified cause; people cannot pinpoint exactly why they are in a good mood. People seem to experience a positive mood when they have a clean slate, have had a good night sleep, and feel no sense of stress in their life.

"Generally, positive mood has been found to enhance creative problem solving and flexible yet careful thinking". "There have been many studies done on the effect of positive emotion on the cognitive mind and there is speculation that positive mood can affect our minds in good or bad ways. Some studies had stated that positive moods let people think creatively, freely, and be more imaginative. People in a positive mood are usually easier to talk to and want to have longer conversations compared to someone who is in a negative or neutral mood. Lastly positive mood can help us in situations where heavy thinking and brainstorming is involved. Positive mood has also been proven to show negative effects on cognition as well. According to the article "Positive mood is associated with implicit use of distraction", "There is also evidence that individuals in positive moods show disrupted performance, at least when distracting information is present". The article states that other things in their peripheral views can easily distract people who are in good moods; an example of this would be if you were trying to study in the library (considering you are in a positive mood) you see people constantly walking around or making small noises. The study is basically stating that it would be harder for positive moods to focus on the task at hand. In particular, happy people may be more sensitive to the hedonic consequences of message processing than sad people. Thus, positive moods are predicted to lead to decreased processing only when thinking about the message is mood threatening. In comparison, if message processing allows a person to maintain or enhance a pleasant state then positive moods need not lead to lower levels of message scrutiny than negative moods. It is assumed that initial information regarding the source either confirms or disconfirms mood-congruent expectations. Specifically, a positive mood may lead to more positive expectations concerning source trustworthiness or likability than a negative mood. As a consequence, people in a positive mood should be more surprised when they encounter an untrustworthy or dislikable source rather than a trustworthy or likable source.