Mood-congruent judgment is a general effect.

Abstract

Mood congruency refers to a match in affective content between a person's mood and his or her thoughts. The mood-congruent judgment effect states in part that attributes will be judged more characteristic, and events more likely, under conditions of mood congruence. Thus, the happy person will believe good weather is more likely than bad weather (relative to such a judgment in a state of mood ^congruence). Three studies showed that the effect generalizes to non-self-relevant judgments with natural mood. Study 1 (N= 202) generalized it across a variety of specific emotions, Study 2(N=\ ,065) generalized it across a variety of tasks, and Study 3 (N= 524) generalized it to a nonlaboratory, statewide sample. The three studies redefine mood-congruent judgment more broadly and thereby inform the debate about its underlying mechanisms. The relation between mood-congruent judgment and personality is discussed.

Risk perception for acquaintance sexual aggression

“…Which specific cognitive constructs are active at any given moment is partly a function of habit (e.g., those that define fundamental aspects of oneself, habitual activities, or responses) and partly a function of what has been situationally cued (e.g., different clusters of self and social constructs will be activated when partying with friends, in a job interview, or home with the family for the holidays). Activated constructs tend to be mood congruent; it is far easier to access constructs consistent with one's prevailing mood and difficult to access those at odds with one's emotional state (Brown & Taylor, 1986;Mayer, Gaschke, Braverman, & Evans, 1992;Nurius & Markus, 1990).…”

Emotion Priming and Attributions for Terrorism: Americans' Reactions in a National Field Experiment

“…The second, and contradictory, pattern is that sadness creates fewer causal attributions than anger, because anger arises from and gives rise to appraisals of justice and blame (Lazarus, 1991;Lerner et al, 1998). Finally, sadness and anger may trigger similar levels of causal attribution, if valence alone determines the effect of emotion on thought processes (e.g., Isen, Shalker, Clark, & Karp, 1978;Mayer, Gaschke, Braverman, & Evans, 1992). That is, they may trigger a globally negative response, with undifferentiated attributional patterns.…”

News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

“…First, people tend to make mood-congruent judgments (Mayer, Gaschke, Braverman, & Evans, 1992). Being in a negative mood cues people to retrieve affectively congruent knowledge and considerations (Chang, 2001;Erisen, Lodge, & Taber, 2012); hence, people's mood mostly corresponds to the connotations of their ideas (Mayer et al, 1992). Thus, a news story that evokes anger, for instance due to perceptions of bias, increases the chance that one's opinions are based on negative information, which causes negative, rejecting and disapproving judgments (Erisen et al, 2012;Mayer et al, 1992;Munro et al, 2002).…”

“…There are two explanations why anger would negatively affect the persuasiveness of news coverage. First, people tend to make mood-congruent judgments (Mayer, Gaschke, Braverman, & Evans, 1992). Being in a negative mood cues people to retrieve affectively congruent knowledge and considerations (Chang, 2001;Erisen, Lodge, & Taber, 2012); hence, people's mood mostly corresponds to the connotations of their ideas (Mayer et al, 1992).…”