Moods, Social Cognition and Motivation

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been considerable experimental research on the influence of moods on social cognition. It has been shown that both positive and negative moods affect several social-cognitive processes, such as the way people evaluate themselves and others, the amount of social support they perceive, and the degree to which they are susceptible to persuasive messages. Currendy, the most influential model to account for effects of mood on social cognition is the so-called 'blackboard-model' proposed by Bower and his colleagues. According to this model, moods automatically influence social-cognitive processes through the selective activation of mood-congruent concepts in memory. This automatic effect may be overruled, however, by the working of the 'blackboard', a structure in the working memory that has the function of integrating information from different sources according to interpretation rules. The blackboard-model is a plausible model, although it is still too general to have predictive power. Among other things, the role of motivation is insufficiendy worked out. In this paper the claim is made that the