Mood, Misattribution, and Judgments of Well-Being: Informative and Directive-Effects of Affective States.

The role of affect in information processing has recently received attention, and several possible influences of affect have been suggested. The informational and directive effects of affect were investigated with subjects (N=61) who either described events in their recent past that made them feel good, described events that made them feel bad, or gave no description of life-events. Additionally, subjects expected to be put in either a good or a bad mood as a result of an external factor, or had no expectations concerning their mood. Describing positive life-events increased reported happiness and life satisfaction relative to a control group, while describing negative life-events decreased the indices of well-being. The impact of describing negative events was eliminated when subjects expected to feel bad due to an external influence, but was nonsignificantly increased when subjects expected to feel good because of an external influence. Subjects describing positive life-events were not affected by mood expectation manipulations. Results suggest that persons use perceptions of their affective states in judgments of well-being, and that affective states have a directive effect on the search for and use of information. (Author/NRB)