When individuals think about their future, feedback on their strengths and weaknesses may often serve as a useful source of information. Three studies investigated the influence of positive and neutral moods on feedback seeking. In Studies 1 and 2, positive mood increased interest in feedback about weaknesses when this information was useful for self-assessment and self-improvement. But when the feedback was not useful for these superordinate, long-term goals then positive mood directed participants’ interest to strength-focused feedback, thereby serving short-term, affective concerns (e.g., feeling good about oneself). Study 3 directly manipulated self-evaluative goals. When a learning goal was activated, positive mood increased interest in weaknesses-focused feedback, but when an affective goal was activated, positive mood increased interest in strength-focused feedback. These results support our hypothesis that positive mood attunes individuals to the relationships of goals and means, thus promoting actions that serve primary goals.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
These items were selected based on pilot testing, using the following criteria: 1) they were judged to be believable skills on which people would seek feedback; 2) they were deemed plausible inter-personal or intra-personal skills, and; 3) pre-test participants thought it very possible that they possessed these weaknesses and strengths.
These six items were selected based on pre-testing 20 possible items, using the following criteria: 1) they were judged to be believable aspects of social intelligence; 2) participants in the pretest believed them to be at least moderately important aspects of social intelligence; 3) pretest participants thought it very possible but not certain that they possessed both weaknesses and strengths in each area.
References
Ashby, F. G., Isen, A. M., & Turken, A. U. (1999). A neuropsychological theory of positive affect and its influence on cognition. Psychological Review, 106, 529–550.
Aspinwall, L. G. (1998). Rethinking the role of positive affect in self-regulation. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 1–32.
Aspinwall, L. G., & Brunhart, S. M. (1996). Distinguishing optimism from denial: Optimistic beliefs predict attention to health threats. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 993–1003.
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182.
Bless, H. (2001). Mood and the use of general knowledge structures. In L. L. Martin & G. L. Clore (Eds.), Theories of mood and cognition. A user's guidebook (pp. 9–26). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bless, H., Hamilton, D. L., & Mackie, D. M. (1992). Mood effects on the organization of person information. European Journal of Social Psychology, 22, 497–509.
Bless, H., Clore, G. L., Schwarz, N., Golisano, V., Rabe, C., & Wolk, M. (1996). Mood and the use of scripts: Does a happy mood really lead to mindlessness? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 665–679.
Bless, H., Schwarz, N., & Wieland, R. (1996). Mood and the impact of category membership and individuating information. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 935–959.
Bodenhausen, G. V., Kramer, G. P., & Süsser, K. (1994). Happiness and stereotypic thinking in social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 621–632.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117–140.
Freitas, A. L., Salovey, P., & Liberman, N. (2001). Abstract and concrete self-evaluative goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 410–424.
Gasper, K., & Clore, G. L. (2002). Attending to the big picture: Mood and global versus local processing of visual information. Psychological Science, 13, 34–40.
Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340.
Higgins, E. T., & Trope, Y. (1990). Activity engagement theory: Implications of multiply identifiable input for intrinsic motivation. In E. T. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 229–264). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Isen, A. M. (1987). Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 20, pp. 203–253). New York: Academic Press.
Isen, A. M. (1993). Positive affect and decision making. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 261–277). New York: Guilford Press.
Isen, A. M. (2004). Some perspectives on positive feelings and emotions, positive affect facilitates thinking and problem solving. In A. S. R. Manstead, N. Frijda, A. Fischer (Eds.), Feelings and emotions, the Amsterdam symposium (pp. 263–281). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Isen, A. M., & Daubman, K. A. (1984). The influence of affect on categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1206–1217.
Isen, A. M., Daubman, K. A., & Nowicki, G. P. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1122–1131.
Isen, A. M., Johnson, M. S., Mertz, E., & Robinson, G. F. (1985). The influence of positive affect on the unusualness of word associations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1413–1426.
Isen, A. M., & Means, B. (1983). The influence of positive affect on decision-making strategy. Social Cognition, 2, 18–31.
Isen, A. M., Shalker, T. E., Clark, M., & Karp, L. (1978). Affect, accessibility of material in memory, and behavior: A cognitive loop? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1–12.
Kenny, D. A., Kashy, D. A., & Bolger, N. (1998). Data analysis in social psychology. In D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, 4th edition, pp. 233–265). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kruglanski, A. W. (1975). The endogenous-exogenous partition in attribution theory. Psychological Review, 82, 387–406.
Kruglanski, A. W., Shah, J., Fishbach, A., Friedman, R., Chun, W. Y., & Sleeth-Keppler, D. (2002). A theory of goal systems. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 331–376). New York: Academic Press.
Liberman, N., & Trope, Y. (1998). The role of feasibility and desirability considerations in near and distance future decisions: A test of Temporal Construal Theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 5–18.
Martin, L. L. (2001). Mood as input: A configural view of mood effects. In L. L. Martin & G. L. Clore (Eds.), Theories of mood and cognition. A user's guidebook (pp. 135–157). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Martin, L. L., & Clore, G. (Eds.), (2001). Theories of mood and cognition, a user's guidebook. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Martin, L. L., Ward, D. W., Achee, J. W., & Wyer, R. S. (1993). Mood as input: People have to interpret the motivational implications of their moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 317–326.
Murray, N., Sujan, H., Hirt, E. R., & Sujan, M. (1990). The influence of mood on categorization: A cognitive flexibility interpretation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 411–425.
Reed, M. B., & Aspinwall, L. G. (1998). Self-affirmation reduces biased processing of health-risk information. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 99–132.
Raghunathan, R., & Trope, Y. (2002). Walking the tightrope between feeling good and being accurate: Mood as a resource in processing persuasive messages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 510–525.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513–523.
Swann, W. B., Jr. (1990). To be adored or to be known? The interplay of self-enhancement and self-verification. In E. T. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 408–448). New York: Guilford Press.
Taylor, S., Neter, E., & Wayment, H. (1995). Self-evaluation processes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1278–1287.
Trope, Y. (1979). Uncertainty-reducing properties of achievement tasks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1505–1518.
Trope, Y. (1980). Self-assessment, self-enhancement and task preference. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 116–129.
Trope, Y. (1986). Self-assessment and self-enhancement in achievement motivation. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol 1, pp. 350–378). New York: Guilford Press.
Trope, Y., Gervey, B., & Bolger, N. (2003). The role of perceived control in overcoming defensive self-evaluations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 407–419.
Trope, Y., Igou, E. R., & Burke, C. T. (2006). Mood as a resource in structuring goal pursuit. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Affect in social thinking and behavior (pp. 217–234). New York: Psychology Press.
Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2000). Temporal construal and time-dependent changes in preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 876–889.
Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110, 401–421.
Trope, Y., & Neter, E. (1994). Reconciling competing motives in self-evaluation: The role of self-control in feedback seeking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 646–657.
Trope, Y., & Pomerantz, E. M. (1998). Resolving conflicts among self-evaluative motives: Positive experiences as a resource for overcoming defensiveness. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 53–72.
Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1987). A theory of action identification. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1989). Levels of personal agency: Individual variation in action identification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 660–671.
Wegener, D. T., & Petty, R. E. (1994). Mood management across affective states: The hedonic contingency hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 1034–1048.
Wegener, D. T., & Petty, R. E., & Smith, S. M. (1995). Positive mood can increase or decrease message scrutiny: The hedonic contingency view of mood and message processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 5–15.
Weiner, B. (1986). Attribution. emotion, and action. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 1, pp. 281–312). New York: Guilford Press.
Acknowledgments
Authorship on this article was determined alphabetically. We want to thank Ronni Michelle Greenwood for her comments on an earlier version of this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gervey, B., Igou, E.R. & Trope, Y. Positive Mood and Future-Oriented Self-Evaluation. Motiv Emot 29, 267–294 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9011-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9011-3