0.8 The psychology of emotions, feelings and thoughts  (Page 23/89)

To sum up, the informational value of mood lies not so much in the moods themselves as in the interaction between mood and context. Moodsprovide input for evaluative, decisional and inference-making processes, and these processes determine the effects that one's moodwill have on one's evaluations, motivations, and behaviors. This course of reasoning, known as the context- dependent effect of mood , implies that the influence of mood on one's evaluations, motivations, and behaviors depends on theinteraction of mood and the situational conditions.

In accordance with the context-dependent effect of mood , one's mood is not synonymous with one's evaluation. Whether a positive or negative mood leads to a favorableor unfavorable evaluation depends on the meaning of one's mood in that context. The question about the meaning of one's mood in differentcontexts is therefore a crucial one. In order to answer it, the mood as input model relies on the role-fulfillment process (Martin, 2001),also known as the "What would I feel if...?" process. This process can be characterized broadly as follows: when people make evaluations,they act as if they were asking themselves the question "What would I feel if...?: (For example, "what would I feel if the horror movie Ijust saw was a good horror movie?"). An evaluation is rendered subjectively when the person compares his/her current moods with theexpected feelings. Favorable evaluations arise to the extent to which the person's moods (positive or negative) are congruent with whatwould be expected if the target had fulfilled a positive role (i.e., if this was a good thing I would feel good, I feel good, so I thinkthis positive thing about it). Unfavorable evaluations, in contrast, arise to the extent to which the person's moods are incongruent withwhat would be expected if the target had fulfilled a negative role (i.e., if this party was bad, it would make me feel bad, however Ifeel good).

When people make evaluations, they are thinking more about what is going on then when they don't make evaluations. That is why negativemood enhances attention to detail - because it puts you in the state where you are questioning why the event or environment you are in ismaking you feel bad. Asking how you might feel if something is felt a certain way is a good way of analyzing the situation. If you thinkabout it, asking how something makes you feel is important - people probably constantly evaluate the events they experience for value orwhat they got from them. Your mood is going to help you to evaluate those things because those events caused you to have that mood. Themood provides the information of what that event or stimulus does to you - how it makes you feel. If people didn't evaluate how an event orstimulus makes them feel, then they wouldn't really be analyzing that input any further than they normally would.

You basically can be put into a state where you are thinking about what the event or stimulus you are evaluating is like. This state iswhen you are questioning what the feelings the event made in you are like or what you think about the event. It is interesting that someonecan simply not think about those things if they wanted. On the other hand, it seems natural for people who experience negative emotions tothink more deeply about the source of those emotions. I guess the trouble that the negative emotions causes them forces one to thinkmore deeply.