Mood Effects on Cognition: Affective Influences on the Content and Process of Information Processing and Behavior

Abstract

How does affect influence the way people think, remember and process social information? Understanding the delicate interplay between feeling and thinking, affect and cognition has for long remained one of the greatest puzzles about human nature. This chapter reviews extensive research evidence for mood effects on both the content, and the process of cognition. After a brief introduction, theories of mood effects on cognition are reviewed. Next, research documenting the importance of affect congruence in the content of thinking is surveyed. Next we discuss the processing effects of affect, including recent empirical studies showing that affective states influence the quality of information processing. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and applied implications of this research, and the future prospects for this line of inquiry are considered.