Sometimes Happy People Focus on the Trees and Sad People Focus on the Forest: Context-Dependent Effects of Mood in Impression Formation

Abstract

Research indicates that affect influences whether people focus on categorical or behavioral information during impression formation. One explanation is that affect confers its value on whatever cognitive inclinations are most accessible in a given situation. Three studies tested this malleable mood effects hypothesis, predicting that happy moods should maintain and unhappy moods should inhibit situationally dominant thinking styles. Participants completed an impression formation task that included categorical and behavioral information. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, no fixed relation between mood and processing emerged. Whether happy moods led to judgments reflecting category-level or behavior-level information depended on whether participants were led to focus on the their immediate psychological state (i.e., current affective experience; Studies 1 and 2) or physical environment (i.e., an unexpected odor; Study 3). Consistent with research on socially situated cognition, these results demonstrate that the same affective state can trigger entirely different thinking styles depending on the context.

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DOI: 10.1177/0146167211424166
2012 38: 220 originally published online 28 September 2011Pers Soc Psychol Bull
Matthew Hunsinger, Linda M. Isbell and Gerald L. Clore
Effects of Mood in Impression Formation
Sometimes Happy People Focus on the Trees and Sad People Focus on the Forest : Context-Dependent
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Article
People think differently when they are happy than when they
are sad (see Clore & Huntsinger, 2007; Isbell & Lair, in
press; Schwarz & Clore, 2007, for reviews). The critical dif-
ference lies not in the content but in the style of their thought.
People in happy moods seem to focus on the forest (i.e.,
category information), whereas those in sad moods focus on
the trees (i.e., the details; e.g., Gasper & Clore, 2002). Evidence
of this tendency is ubiquitous. Compared to individuals in
sad (or neutral) moods, those in happy moods rely on stereo-
types to a greater extent during impression formation (Bless,
2000; Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Susser, 1994; Isbell, 2004),
actively select global traits over behaviors when forming
impressions of others (Isbell, Burns, & Haar, 2005), rely on
scripts (Bless et al., 1996), are less influenced by argument
strength in persuasion tasks (e.g., Bless, Bohner, Schwarz, &
Strack, 1990; Schwarz, Bless, & Bohner, 1991), create and
use categories more flexibly (Isen & Daubman, 1984; Isen,
Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987; Murray, Sujan, Hirt, & Sujan,
1990), and describe behaviors, events, and themselves in
more abstract language (Beukeboom & Semin, 2005, 2006;
Isbell, McCabe, Burns, & Lair, 2011). Happy moods also
increase the likelihood of the fundamental attribution error
(Forgas, 1998), an error that results when individuals fail
to correct their global dispositional judgments for situational
details.
Over the years, various explanations have been proposed
for the link between affect and style of thought (i.e., informa-
tion processing style). Happy moods have been hypothesized
to lead to category-level processing (Bless, 2000; Bodenhausen
et al., 1994), heuristic processing (Schwarz & Clore, 2007),
broadened attention (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005), global
attention (Gasper & Clore, 2002), approach motivation
(Harmon-Jones, 2003), assimilation (Fiedler, 2001), substan-
tive processing (Forgas, 2001), and relational processing
424166PSPXXX10.1177/0146167211424166Hunsin
ger et al.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
1Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA, USA
2University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
3University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Linda M. Isbell, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts
Amherst, 630 Tobin Hall, 135 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA 01003-9271
Email: lisbell@psych.umass.edu
Sometimes Happy People Focus on
the Trees and Sad People Focus on
the Forest: Context-Dependent Effects
of Mood in Impression Formation
Matthew Hunsinger1, Linda M. Isbell2, and Gerald L. Clore3
Abstract
Research indicates that affect influences whether people focus on categorical or behavioral information during impression
formation. One explanation is that affect confers its value on whatever cognitive inclinations are most accessible in a
given situation. Three studies tested this malleable mood effects hypothesis, predicting that happy moods should maintain
and unhappy moods should inhibit situationally dominant thinking styles. Participants completed an impression formation
task that included categorical and behavioral information. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, no fixed relation
between mood and processing emerged. Whether happy moods led to judgments reflecting category-level or behavior-
level information depended on whether participants were led to focus on the their immediate psychological state (i.e.,
current affective experience; Studies 1 and 2) or physical environment (i.e., an unexpected odor; Study 3). Consistent with
research on socially situated cognition, these results demonstrate that the same affective state can trigger entirely different
thinking styles depending on the context.
Keywords
mood, affect and cognition, person perception, impression formation
Received December 20, 2009; revision accepted August 15, 2011
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Hunsinger et al. 221
(Storbeck & Clore, 2005). These explanations all assume a
more or less fixed relation between affect and particular think-
ing styles. The current research was designed to test an alter-
native, simpler hypothesis; namely, that instead of a dedicated
link between affect and thinking style, affect serves an infor-
mative function that signals the value of whatever mode of
thought is currently accessible or dominant at the time (e.g.,
Clore et al., 2001; Clore & Huntsinger, 2009; Isbell, 2010;
Isbell & Lair, in press). As with reward, positive affect should
empower any response with which it is associated. In other
words, positive affect may privilege one’s own perspective,
including whatever processing style is psychologically most
prominent or salient for the perceiver in a given context.
According to this view, the tendency for happiness to lead to
heuristic, relational, global, or any other specific kind of pro-
cessing may simply reflect the natural dominance of those
modes of thinking on particular tasks. That is, given that global
processing often has priority in many situations (Bruner, 1957;
see Fiske & Taylor, 2008), it is not surprising that happiness is
likely to confer value on this dominant response and encourage
its use. In contrast, the information conveyed by sadness is
likely to discourage its use.
The idea that the influence of affect on cognition is con-
text dependent is consistent with recent work emphasizing
the situated nature of cognition (e.g., Mesquita, Barrett, &
Smith, 2010; Reis, 2009; Smith & Collins, 2010; Smith &
Conrey, 2009; Smith & Semin, 2007). In contrast to tradi-
tional views of cognition that posit that cognitive processes
are abstract and independent of context, this view argues that
cognition is situated in organism–environment interactions
that guide individuals’ behavior in the moment. The notion
that the impact of affect on cognition is situated follows
closely from the affect-as-information framework (e.g., Clore
et al., 2001, Wyer, Clore, & Isbell, 1999; see Martin, 2000;
Martin, Ward, Achee, & Wyer, 1993).
The Affect-as-Information Approach and the
Malleable Mood Effects Hypothesis
The basic premise underlying the affect-as-information
approach is that affective experiences, which result from
largely nonconscious, continuously operating appraisal pro-
cesses, are adaptive and convey important and meaningful
information to individuals who experience them (Schwarz,
1990; Schwarz & Clore, 2007). Given that affective responses
occur along with other responses to an object, affective
responses are experienced as a part of whatever is in one’s
mind at the time (Clore et al., 2001; Clore & Huntsinger,
2009; Isbell, 2011; Isbell & Lair, in press; see also Higgins,
1998; Wyer et al., 1999). Depending on the object of one’s
focus, affective responses may have different meanings and,
consequently, different effects. Thus, the meaning or infor-
mational value of affect depends on the context in which it
is experienced.
To emphasize the dynamic and changing nature of affect’s
influence on cognition, we propose the malleable mood
effects hypothesis. This hypothesis specifically states that
the impact of affect on processing is not fixed but instead is
variable and malleable, and can easily be reversed by alter-
ing what processing inclination is currently accessible. This
hypothesis is consistent with earlier work (e.g., Clore et al.,
2001; see also Clore & Huntsinger, 2009; Isbell, 2010; Isbell
& Lair, in press; Wyer et al., 1999), which states that indi-
viduals experience their affect as feedback about the value of
their currently accessible mental content and processing incli-
nations. From this perspective, happiness confers positive
value on accessible information, thereby promoting its use,
whereas sadness confers negative value on this information,
thereby inhibiting its use. Cues associated with happiness
often serve as a “go” signal that facilitates the use of currently
accessible information and processing inclinations, whereas
cues associated with sadness serve as a “stop” signal that
inhibits the use of this information (e.g., Clore et al., 2001;
Wyer at al., 1999; see also Martin, 2000; Martin et al., 1993).
The malleable mood effects hypothesis more fully explicates
an important implication of these earlier theoretical formula-
tions and highlights the nonobvious prediction that affective
influences are highly malleable. That is, this hypothesis
emphasizes the lack of connection between affective valence
and information processing style. Predictions generated from
this hypothesis stand in sharp contrast to those made by
many existing theories of affect and processing, which posit
a dedicated link between affective valence and specific pro-
cessing styles.
Information processing often involves a combination of
top-down, schema-driven, relational, global processing and
more bottom-up, data-driven, item-specific, local processing
(see Clore et al., 2001; Clore & Huntsinger, 2009), both of
which are assumed to be constantly active. Although at any
moment either of these processing approaches may have pri-
ority (Neisser, 1976), an overwhelming amount of evidence
demonstrates that global processing tends to be naturally domi-
nant both perceptually (e.g., Kimchi, 1992; Navon, 1977) and
conceptually (see Fiske & Taylor, 2008) in many situations
(Bruner, 1957). For example, in impression formation tasks,
individuals typically (and often automatically) rely on global,
category-based information as a basis for their judgments (e.g.,
Brewer, 1988; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; see Fiske & Taylor,
2008, for a review). Importantly, the vast majority of research
investigating the impact of affect on processing has relied on
tasks that favor global responding (Clore & Huntsinger,
2007). Thus, not surprisingly, findings often reveal that hap-
piness promotes global processes and sadness inhibits them.
Such findings are consistent with the proposed malleable mood
effects hypothesis and with the many theories that posit a direct
link between specific affective experiences and specific pro-
cessing styles. The key is to differentiate these explanations.
The current research was designed to do this.
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222 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38(2)
Overview of the Current Research
To assess the malleable mood effects hypothesis, one needs
to alter individuals’ dominant, default response tendency to
respond globally to see whether positive affect continues to
result in global (i.e., category-based) processing or whether it
promotes operations associated with local (i.e., item-based)
processing in a subsequent unrelated task (Freitas, Gollwitzer,
& Trope, 2004; Gollwitzer, 1990; Gollwitzer, Heckhausen,
& Steller, 1990; see also Forster & Dannenberg, 2010).
Likewise, one also needs to examine whether negative affect
continues to promote local (item-based) processing under
these conditions or whether it encourages global (category-
based) processing as predicted. The current research com-
pares control conditions in which category-level processing
naturally dominates (e.g., use of stereotypes) with experi-
mental conditions in which detailed, item-level processing
(e.g., use of specific behaviors) is made dominant.
The purpose of the research was to determine whether
affective influences change in response to shifts in the
salience or accessibility of different processing styles, or
whether (as many accounts would predict) positive affect
continues to promote global, category-level processing and
negative affect continues to promote local, item-level pro-
cessing. We chose mood effects on stereotyping as a general
paradigm because it is a reliable phenomenon observed by
many investigators (e.g., Bless, 2000; Bodenhausen et al.,
1994; Isbell, 2004). A very large body of research (see Macrae
& Bodenhausen, 2000, for a review) demonstrates that
once a stereotype is activated, its use tends to be a default
response during impression formation (see Fiske & Taylor,
2008). Positive affect validates and privileges such acti-
vated responses so that individuals in happy moods tend to
show strong stereotyping effects. In our control conditions,
we expected to replicate prior work demonstrating these typ-
ical effects of mood on stereotype use.
In three studies, three different methods were employed
to momentarily alter people’s tendency to adopt a global
focus when forming impressions of others. Again, the ques-
tion was whether increasing the accessibility of a local focus
would reverse the usual mood effects on stereotyping. The
standard position is that positive mood should continue to
promote stereotyping effects, but the current malleable mood
effects hypothesis predicts that positive affect promotes
whatever orientation is most accessible at the moment. The
basic logic of our approach is that in impression formation
tasks, target attributes and perceiver reactions are generally
experienced together as an undifferentiated whole. However,
if perceivers are asked about their own reactions as a part of
the whole, their focus necessarily becomes more local. Thus,
in Study 1, half of the participants were initially asked ques-
tions about their current feelings, requiring a local focus that
could be contrasted with the unchanged global focus of the
control group. In Study 2, instead of directing participants to
focus on their own reactions, we selected individuals who
had indicated that they naturally adopt such a local focus by
attending to their own emotional reactions in response to
affect-eliciting experiences. In Study 3, to make sure that
any effects were not unique to self-focused attention, we
treated questionnaires with a subtle but pleasant odorant.
Prior research had indicated that unexplained odors cause
participants to focus on the immediate environment (e.g.,
Lacey, 1967; Sokolov, 1963; Winneke, 1992), which was
again expected to alter the usual global orientation in which
target, context, and personal reactions are usually experi-
enced as a whole.
In all three studies, participants heard or read a brief story
about a day in the life of a woman named Carol, who was
described either as an introverted librarian or as an extro-
verted salesperson. In addition to this category-level infor-
mation, the story depicted an equal number of introverted and
extroverted behaviors that Carol exhibited. Consistent with
prior research demonstrating that primed attentional focus in
one task carries over to influence subsequent tasks (e.g.,
Forster, Friedman, & Liberman, 2004; Trope & Liberman,
2003; Wakslak, Trope, Liberman, & Alony, 2006; see Forster
& Dannenberg, 2010), we expected our local focus condi-
tions to orient perceivers toward behavior-level rather than
category-level social information. Thus, in the control con-
ditions of each study, we expected positive affect to pro-
mote the default global focus, as usual. By contrast, in each
of the local focus conditions, we expected positive affect to
promote the newly accessible local focus, leading perceiv-
ers to show individuated rather than stereotypic judgments
on the impression formation task.
Study 1
To test the proposed malleable mood effects hypothesis,
Study 1 relied on naturally occurring differences in affect
captured in telephone interviews (see Isbell, 2004; Isbell
et al., 2005). Prior to completing an impression formation
task, we asked some participants to think carefully about
their current affective state. We expected that participants’
focus on the details of their own affective states would
make a local, behavior-level processing style most salient.
For happy participants in this condition, this local mind-set
was expected to carry over to influence processing in the
subsequent impression formation task. Unhappy partici-
pants, who should inhibit reliance on this detailed process-
ing mind-set, were expected to show more evidence of
global (category-based) processing. Given that global,
categorical processing tends to be the default in impression
tasks (e.g., Bodenhausen et al., 1994; Isbell, 2004), we
expected that in the control condition, where participants
were not asked to think about their affective state, happy
participants would show the typical pattern in which they
rely on global, categorical processing. As usual, unhappy
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Hunsinger et al. 223
control participants were expected to show behavior-level
processing.
Method
Participants and design. One-hundred and fifty-five stu-
dents (70 males) completed this study. Telephone numbers
were randomly selected from each page of the student tele-
phone directory. Students were contacted and asked to par-
ticipate in a study that they could complete on the phone (see
Isbell, 2004; Isbell et al., 2005). Participants were assigned to
either the control (default categorical focus) or experimental
(detail-oriented focus) condition and to either the librarian or
salesperson stereotype condition.
Procedure
Control condition. Participants formed an impression of an
unknown person named Carol. The experimenter first read
background information about Carol, which described her as
either an introverted librarian or an extroverted sales repre-
sentative. The experimenter than read a story describing three
introverted and three extroverted behaviors that Carol recently
performed, as well as several behaviors that are neither intro-
verted nor extroverted. This story is a shortened and revised
version of one used by Snyder and Cantor (1979) and identi-
cal to the one used by Isbell (2004) and Isbell et al (2005).
Following the story, participants rated Carol on a series of
introverted (withdrawn, shy, a loner, quiet) and extroverted
(talkative, self-confident, sociable, outgoing) traits using a
scale from 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely). Using the same
scale, participants then rated the extent to which they felt
happy at the moment.
Affect attention condition. Participants in this condition
first reported how happy they felt and then were prompted to
think more specifically about the details of their immediate
affective state. Participants were asked, “Is the way you are
feeling right now due to school, other people, specific events
in your life, or something else?” Participants then rated the
adequacy of this explanation for their current affective state.
Next, participants completed the same impression formation
task described earlier.
Results and Discussion
Influence of affect, stereotypes, and processing condition on
trait judgments. Consistent with prior research, we expected
that in the control condition, where categorical processing
naturally tends to be dominant, happy mood would be associ-
ated with reliance on categorical information. In line with the
malleable mood effects hypothesis, we expected the opposite
pattern of results in the local, detail-focus condition. That is,
we expected that increases in happiness would be associated
with increased reliance on detailed behavioral information as
a basis for impressions. To explore these possibilities, we
computed each participant’s mean rating of Carol on the
introverted traits and subtracted it from their mean rating of
Carol on the extroverted traits. On this measure, higher scores
reflect relatively greater impressions of extroversion.1 If par-
ticipants were focused on the specific behaviors in the story
when forming an impression of Carol, their scores should be
similar regardless of whether they received the librarian or
sales representative information. In this case, participants’
judgments would reflect their relatively greater reliance on
individuating information. On the other hand, if participants
focused on information about Carol’s profession, their scores
should be relatively more introverted or extroverted, reflect-
ing greater reliance on stereotypical attributes associated with
being a librarian or a salesperson, respectively.
In a hierarchical regression, the main effects of happiness,
processing condition, and stereotype were entered in Step 1;
all two-way interactions were entered in Step 2; and the
three-way interaction was entered in Step 3. As predicted, a
significant three-way interaction emerged, B = −5.51, SE =
1.45, p < .01. Consistent with expectations, in the control
condition where global processing is naturally dominant
(Figure 1A), greater happiness was associated with increased
reliance on categorical information about Carol as a basis for
impressions, whereas lower levels of happiness were associ-
ated with increased reliance on the mixed set of behaviors
about Carol, B = 2.14, SE = .75, p < .01. In the detailed prim-
ing condition (Figure 1B), the opposite pattern of results
emerged. Less happy participants’ impressions of Carol
reflected the categorical information about her, whereas hap-
pier participants’ impressions reflected the mixed set of
behaviors, B = −3.39, SE = 1.32, p = .01. These findings pro-
vide support for the malleable mood effects hypothesis,
which states that happiness promotes reliance on the process-
ing style that is currently most dominant, regardless if it is
made dominant because of situational factors or is naturally
dominant. In contrast, unhappiness inhibits such reliance on
this information. These results provide initial evidence that
neither happiness nor unhappiness is tied to specific informa-
tion processing styles.
Study 2
The goal of Study 2 was to replicate and extend the findings
obtained in Study 1 in two ways. First, we experimentally
manipulated mood. Second, we examined differences in the
chronic tendency for individuals to attend to their own affec-
tive states. In contrast to the control group, in which target
information, context, and affective reactions tend to be expe-
rienced as a whole, individuals who characterize them-
selves as habitually focused on their own reactions constitute
a more local, detail-focused condition. Thus, following an
affect-eliciting experience (e.g., a mood manipulation),
these individuals are likely to adopt a local focus on their
current state. Hence, we expected these individuals to show
effects of mood on processing similar to those found for
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224 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38(2)
Figure 1. Mean trait difference score as a function of happiness
level, stereotype, and condition
participants in Study 1 who were randomly assigned to focus
locally on their current affective experience. We expected
that the local focus would make the behavior-level informa-
tion in the story most salient. In contrast, among participants
who do not chronically attend to their own feelings, the
default global, category-level processing would remain
dominant. In this case, Carol’s introverted or extroverted
personality traits should be the most salient. As in Study 1,
we expected these activated tendencies to interact with
mood. Happy mood should promote, and sad moods should
inhibit, the default global processing style in the low atten-
tion to emotion condition and the local processing style in
the high attention to emotion condition.
Method
Participants and design. One-hundred and fifteen partici-
pants (35 males) completed this study for extra credit.
Participants were recruited on the basis of their responses to
the Emotional Creativity Scale (ECS; Averill, 1999) and the
Meta-Mood Scale (MMS; Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey,
& Palfai, 1995). These questionnaires were completed by
more than 1,300 introductory psychology students as part of
a web-based prescreening conducted during the first 2 weeks
of the semester. The ECS assesses the degree to which indi-
viduals are aware of and examine their affective states,
whereas the MMS assesses emotional attention, clarity, and
repair. Both measures ask participants to indicate their agree-
ment with affect-relevant statements. Given our interest in
examining individuals who are particularly likely or unlikely
to spontaneously consider the details of their affective experi-
ences, we selected three items from the ECS (e.g., “I think
about and try to understand my emotional reactions,” “When
I have emotional reactions I search for reasons for my feel-
ings,” and “I pay attention to other people’s emotions so I can
better understand my own feelings”) and three from the MMS
(e.g., “I often think about my feelings,” “I don’t think it’s
worth paying attention to your emotions or moods,” and “I
think about my mood constantly”) that specifically tap this
construct. Together these six items demonstrated adequate
reliability (α = .78) and loaded onto one factor in an explor-
atory factor analysis (all factor loadings ≥ .60). A mean atten-
tion to affect score was computed on the basis of these six
items for each participant. Participants were recruited if they
scored in the upper or lower quartiles on this measure. They
were randomly assigned to the mood (happy vs. sad) and ste-
reotype (librarian vs. sales representative) conditions.
Procedure. Mood was experimentally manipulated by ran-
domly assigning participants to write about either a recent
happy or sad personal experience (e.g., Isbell, 2004; Schwarz
& Clore, 1983). Specifically, participants were instructed to
recall a recent life experience that made them feel happy (sad)
at the time of the experience and continued to make them feel
this way when they recalled the experience. Participants were
given 8 min to write about the experience and how they felt
when it happened. Participants were led to believe that the
purpose of this task was to assist us in generating a database
of college students’ experiences.
Following the mood manipulation task, participants were
introduced to an impression formation task, which was simi-
lar to the one used in Study 1 with two exceptions. First, the
story about Carol was considerably longer, containing 12
extroverted behaviors, 12 introverted behaviors, and 15
behaviors that are neither extroverted nor introverted (Snyder
& Cantor, 1979). In addition, the information about Carol
was presented on a computer and participants read the infor-
mation at their own pace and reported their judgments on
the computer. Participants’ judgments were computed as in
Study 1. After this task, participants indicated on a scale
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Hunsinger et al. 225
from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely) the extent to which they
felt a variety of affective experiences (including happy and
sad) while writing their stories.
Results and Discussion
Mood manipulation check. Participants’ happiness and sad-
ness ratings were analyzed as repeated measures as a function
of mood, attention to affect, and stereotype. As expected, par-
ticipants in the happy condition reported greater happiness
(M = 4.45, SD = .67) than sadness (M = 1.62, SD = 1.03),
whereas those in the sad condition reported greater sadness
(M = 3.98, SD = .98) than happiness (M = 1.44, SD = .69),
F(1, 113) = 521.62, p < .01, η2 = .80. No other effects were
significant, all ps > .20.
Influence of affect, stereotypes, and attention to affect on trait
judgments. We predicted the same pattern of results as in
Study 1. Specifically, we hypothesized that the effects of
mood and stereotypes on participants’ trait judgments would
be moderated by individual differences in chronic attention to
one’s own affect. Consistent with our expectations and the
findings of Study 1, we found a three-way interaction between
these variables, F(1, 113) = 8.40, p < .01, η2 = .04. As shown
in Figure 2A, among participants low in attention to affect, we
replicated the typical stereotyping findings, as well as those
obtained in the control condition in Study 1 where global,
category-level processing is naturally dominant. Happy par-
ticipants relied on categorical information as a basis for their
trait judgments, t(113) = 3.87, p < .01, d = .49, whereas sad
individuals did not, t(113) < 1. As shown in Figure 2B, and
consistent with the results obtained in the affect attention con-
dition in Study 1, we found the predicted reversal among
individuals high in attention to affect. Sad participants relied
on categorical information as a basis for their judgments,
t(113) = 4.09, p < .01, d = 1.47, whereas happy participants
were less likely to do so, t(113) = 1.88, p = .06, d = .45.2
These results are consistent with the malleable mood effects
hypothesis in which the impact of happy and sad moods
depends on what processing tendencies happen to be most
accessible in a given context. However, one shortcoming of
these studies is that in both, the local focus involved attention
to one’s self and internal experiences (i.e., one’s psychologi-
cal environment). Study 3 was designed to determine if a very
different means of disrupting participants’ usual global orien-
tation would produce the same results. Specifically, we intro-
duced an unexpected but pleasant odor to lead participants to
shift focus from the whole impression formation situation to
their immediate local environment.
Study 3
In Study 3 we sought to replicate the pattern of results
obtained in Studies 1 and 2 by manipulating both mood and
whether participants’ attention was focused on their imme-
diate physical environment. To do this, we introduced an
unexpected stimulus (an odor) into participants’ physical
environments. Such a stimulus orients individuals to their
immediate external environment (e.g., Lacey, 1967; Sokolov,
1963; Winneke, 1992) and narrows focus of attention (e.g.,
Barker et al., 2003). For example, Barker et al. (2003) found
that when participants were exposed to an odor (compared
to no odor), they performed better in alphabetization and
typing tasks, both of which require attention to detail.
In our research, we sprayed questionnaires with a subtle,
pleasant fragrance to direct respondents’ attention to their
immediate surroundings. Using this technique provides an
opportunity to create a detailed environmental focus that is
external to the self. Based on findings from our first two
Figure 2. Mean trait difference score as a function of mood,
stereotype, and attention to affect
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226 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38(2)
studies, we expected that such a focus would lead partici-
pants to rely more on behavior-level information about
Carol, whereas in the no odor control condition, where
global, category-level processes are naturally dominant, we
expected judgments to reflect the more abstract, category-
level information. If happy mood promotes or maintains a
currently dominant processing style and sad mood inhibits it,
then affect should again interact with the currently dominant
thinking style.
Method
Participants and design. Seventy-four participants (35 males)
completed this study in partial fulfillment of a course require-
ment. Participants were randomly assigned to the mood, ste-
reotype, and odor conditions.
Procedure. Participants first completed a brief question-
naire in which they reported personal information (e.g.,
age, gender) and completed several filler questions unre-
lated to the current study. All participants received this
questionnaire in a closed envelope and were instructed to
open the envelope, take the questionnaire out, and com-
plete it. Participants in the odor condition received ques-
tionnaires that were treated with a fragrance, whereas those
in the no odor condition received untreated questionnaires.
After completing the questionnaire, participants placed it
back in the envelope and the experimenter collected the
envelopes. Participants were next introduced to the mood
manipulation task and then to the impression formation
task, both of which were identical to those used in Study 2.
Afterward, participants indicated the extent to which they
experienced a variety of affective states (including happi-
ness and sadness) using scales from 0 (not at all) to 10
(extremely). Finally, participants were informed that some
of the questionnaires distributed at the beginning of the
study were treated with an odor and they were asked
whether they had noticed the odor earlier.
Results and Discussion
Odor manipulation check. Ten participants in the odor con-
dition reported that they did not detect the odor. These par-
ticipants were equally distributed across both the mood and
stereotype conditions, both χ2s(1) < .40. Given that awareness
of (and not simply the presence of) the unexplained odor was
expected to lead participants to focus on the immediate envi-
ronment, we combined these participants with those in the
no-odor condition. Similar results emerge if we drop these 10
participants.
Mood manipulation check. Happiness and sadness ratings
were analyzed as repeated measures as a function of mood,
stereotype, and odor conditions. As expected, participants in
the happy condition reported greater happiness (M = 6.66,
SD = 2.68) than sadness (M = 2.04, SD = 2.94), whereas
those in the sad condition reported greater sadness (M = 7.06,
SD = 2.21) than happiness (M = 2.63, SD = 2.20), F (1,66)
= 68.07, p < .01, η2 = .50.3
Influence of affect, stereotype, and odor on trait judgments.
Consistent with results obtained in the control condition in
Study 1 and among participants low in attention to affect in
Study 2, we expected that participants not exposed to the odor
(and those who failed to detect it) should be more likely to
have a default, category-level focus on the target. Hence,
abstract, category-level information about Carol was expected
to be most prominent in the no-odor control condition. Happy
mood should promote or maintain reliance on such category-
level information and sad mood should inhibit such reliance.
In contrast, the unexplained odor was expected to induce a
local, detailed orientation that would carry over to the impres-
sion formation task. In this case, the odor was expected to
make the concrete, behavior-level information about Carol
more likely to be relied on in the impression formation task.
As in the detail-focused conditions of Studies 1 and 2, we
again expected happy mood to promote or maintain reliance
on behavior-level information, whereas sad moods should
inhibit that tendency.
An analysis of participants’ trait impressions (computed as
in Studies 1 and 2) as a function of mood, stereotype, and odor
revealed the predicted three-way interaction, F(1, 66) = 6.81,
p = .01, η2 = .09. In the no-odor condition (see Figure 3A),
happy participants judged the sales representative to be rela-
tively more extroverted than the librarian, t(66) = 3.56, p =
.01, d = 1.56, whereas sad participants judged the two simi-
larly, t(66) < 1. As expected, the opposite pattern of results
emerged in the odor condition (see Figure 3B). That is, sad
participants judged the sales representative to be relatively
more extroverted than the librarian, t(66) = 2.06, p = .04,
d = 1.26, whereas happy participants judged the two simi-
larly, t(66) < 1.4,5 The results of Study 3 thus replicate those
obtained in Studies 1 and 2 and are again consistent with the
malleable mood effects hypothesis, which asserts that hap-
piness promotes or maintains and sadness inhibits whatever
processing tendency is dominant in the perceiver’s mind.
General Discussion
The results of all three studies converge on a single conclu-
sion. Feelings of happiness led individuals to rely on the most
accessible information processing style, regardless if it was
naturally dominant (as in our control conditions) or situa-
tionally induced (as in our experimental conditions), whereas
feelings of unhappiness or sadness inhibited such reliance.
This was true regardless of whether affect was measured
(Study 1) or manipulated (Studies 2 and 3), whether partici-
pants were led to focus locally on their immediate psychologi-
cal state (Studies 1 and 2) or physical environment (Study 3),
and regardless of whether participants listened to the target
information being read to them (Study 1) or read the informa-
tion themselves at their own pace (Studies 2 and 3). Contrary
to research suggesting that affective states are tied to
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Hunsinger et al. 227
specific information processing styles (e.g., Bodenhausen
et al., 1994; Gasper & Clore, 2002; Mackie & Worth, 1989;
Schwarz & Clore, 2007; Wegener, Petty, & Smith, 1995),
these studies suggest that the manner in which affect influ-
ences processing is not fixed but variable. Each study not
only replicated the effects most commonly reported in the
literature under the default, dominant global processing con-
ditions (e.g., Bless, 2000; Bodenhausen et al., 1994; Gasper
& Clore, 2002, Isbell, 2004; Schwarz et al., 1991; see Isbell
& Lair, in press; Schwarz & Clore, 2007, for reviews) but
also produced the reverse by inducing in some conditions a
local, detail-focused orientation that made concrete, behavior-
level information dominant at the time. Thus, the same
affective states led individuals to attend to and process social
information differently depending on whether a default,
dominant, global thinking style or a situationally induced,
detailed-oriented thinking style was accessible for perceiv-
ers at the time.
Our results are consistent with other statements of the
affect-as-information approach (e.g., Clore et al., 2001; Clore
& Huntsinger, 2009; Martin, 2000; Martin et al., 1993, Wyer
et al., 1999). In this view, affective reactions are embodied
evaluations that confer positive or negative value on currently
accessible styles of thought or information. By making a
local, behavior-level processing style dominant in studies of
stereotyping, we found that positive affect just as readily pro-
motes that style as the typically dominant, global or category-
level processing style in the control conditions.
A small number of other studies are consistent with both
the malleability hypothesis and our findings. For example,
Storbeck and Clore (2008) found that happy moods facili-
tated semantic and affective priming, whereas sad moods
inhibited such effects. Likewise, compared to sad individuals,
happy individuals have been found to be less successful at
suppressing an unwanted (i.e., accessible) thought (Wyland
& Forgas, 2007). Individuals in happy moods are more likely
to adopt an accessible goal and behave accordingly, whereas
those in unhappy moods are more likely to reject accessible
goals (Fishbach & Labroo, 2007). In a similar vein, partici-
pants induced to feel happy after being exposed to a persua-
sive communication based their attitudes on their currently
accessible thoughts, whereas those in sad moods did not
(Brinol, Petty, & Barden, 2007). Relative to sadness, hap-
piness also reduces stereotype activation when counterste-
reotypic thoughts are made accessible (Huntsinger, Sinclair,
Dunn, & Clore, 2010).
A few other studies have directly primed local processing
and have revealed support for the malleability hypothesis.
For example, following exposure to a local processing prime,
individuals in happy moods respond to the local elements in
perceptual identification tasks, whereas those in sad moods
respond to the global elements (Huntsinger, Clore, & Bar-
Anon, 2010). Thus, the local processing prime reversed the
typically observed effects of mood on global and local per-
ception (Gasper & Clore, 2002). In a recent study conducted
in our laboratory, we primed happy and sad participants with
a global or local processing prime and then had them make
judgments of intergroup variability (Isbell & Lair, 2011).
Following a global prime, the typical effect of mood on vari-
ability judgments emerged (e.g,. Queller, Mackie, &
Stroessner, 1996; Stroessner & Mackie, 1992; Stroessner,
Mackie, & Michaelson, 2005). That is, happy individuals
judged group members to be more similar to one another than
did sad individuals. As predicted by the malleability hypothe-
sis, the local prime reversed this effect. In this case, sad indi-
viduals perceived greater similarity than did happy individuals.
Consistent with these studies, our current findings demon-
strate that happy moods promote reliance on currently domi-
nant responses or modes of thought, whereas sad and unhappy
moods inhibit such reliance.
Figure 3. Mean trait difference score as a function of mood,
stereotype, and odor condition
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228 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38(2)
Compatible Views
Brinol and Petty (e.g., 2003) have proposed a compatible
view in the persuasion domain. They suggest that positive
and negative affective cues (e.g., head shaking and nodding)
can have the effect of validating or invalidating currently
accessible thoughts. For example, shaking one’s head can
invalidate both positive thoughts elicited by strong persua-
sive arguments and negative thoughts elicited by weak
arguments, reversing the usual effects of strong and weak
arguments on persuasion. Also consistent with the idea that
positive affect is not dedicated to global, category-level pro-
cessing are results by Gable and Harmon-Jones (2008; see
also Harmon-Jones & Gable, 2009). They found that posi-
tive affect can promote a local rather than a global focus
when it reflects not general happiness but approach motiva-
tion directed at a specific goal. Furthermore, research sug-
gests that positive affect is associated with flexible processing
and facilitation of switching between global and local pro-
cessing in visual perception tasks (e.g., Baumann & Kuhl,
2005; Tan, Jones, & Watson, 2009), greater set switching in
a cognitive control task (e.g., Dreisbach & Goschke, 2004),
and greater flexibility and creativity in insight and problem-
solving tasks (e.g., Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999; Su brama niam,
Kounios, Parrish, & Jung-Beeman, 2009). Our findings,
like those of Brinol and Petty and others, suggest that
negative affect like positive affect may also lead to flexible
processing depending on the context in which it is experi-
enced. Together, all of these findings are compatible with
the more general recent intellectual movement to examine
cognition as socially situated rather than as a product of
abstract and stable mental processes that are independent of
the context in which they occur (e.g., Mesquita et al., 2010;
Reis, 2009; Smith & Collins, 2010; Smith & Conrey, 2009;
Smith & Semin, 2007).
Can Discounting of Affective
Cues Account for the Results?
Although we believe that the results of all three studies are
most consistent with the malleable mood effects hypothesis,
we consider a possible alternative interpretation of our
results in Studies 1 and 2. One could speculate that having
participants’ attention drawn to the details of their affective
state may have led participants to discount the informational
value of their affective cues, which may have altered the
effects of mood on processing in the impression formation
task. Although a key tenet of the affect-as-information model
does maintain that affective cues are relied on only if they are
perceived as relevant feedback about whatever is currently in
one’s focus of attention, such discounting manipulations
routinely eliminate processing differences (e.g., Beukeboom
& Semin, 2006; Gasper, 2004; Hirt, Levine, McDonald,
Melton, & Martin, 1997; Isbell et al., 2011; Sinclair, Mark,
& Clore, 1994; see Isbell & Lair, in press; Schwarz & Clore,
2007, for reviews). For example, Sinclair et al. (1994) found
that the typical effects of mood on persuasion are eliminated
when individuals are led to attribute their feelings to a source-
irrelevant cause (i.e., the weather). Relatedly, Beukeboom and
Semin (2006) found that the influence of affect-induced
global and local processing styles led happy participants to
describe a film in more abstract language than sad partici-
pants; however, this difference was eliminated when the
source of participants’ affect was made salient. Isbell et al.
(2011) reported a similar effect in an investigation of the
influence of affective states on individuals’ spontaneous self-
descriptions.
To our knowledge, no published research provides evi-
dence that discounting manipulations reverse the typical
mood and processing effects. To invoke such an explanation
for the results of Studies 1 and 2, it seems that one would have
to assume that participants first attributed their moods (thus
eliminating the effects of mood on processing) and then
engaged in a corrective process that led to the reversal of the
typically observed effects. Although possible, this discount-
ing and correction explanation cannot account for the results
of Study 3, nor can it easily account for the results of other
research described earlier that reports similar effects in differ-
ent paradigms. We believe that the malleable mood effects
interpretation offers a more parsimonious explanation for our
findings across all three studies.
Conclusions and Implications
Together, the results of our studies and recent research on
affect suggest that understanding the impact of affect requires
knowing more than just the affective state. It also requires
knowing what is accessible or dominant in the mind of the
perceiver at the time. In most research on affect and pro-
cessing, factors such as what processing style was currently
dominant were not considered. Consequently, the typically
observed effects of mood on processing were heavily influ-
enced by the global processing style that is the default, and
naturally dominant, response for a vast majority of the par-
ticipants in these studies. For this reason, it is not surprising
that a voluminous body of literature has emerged in support
of a dedicated link between mood and information processing
styles (see Isbell & Lair, in press; Schwarz & Clore, 2007, for
reviews). The prevalence of such “typical” effects has led
many researchers to define the relation between affect and
processing as a fixed one.
The recent situated cognition movement has alerted
researchers to the importance of carefully considering
contextual factors when examining social cognitive pro-
cesses. Our work is in the same spirit as this movement. We
believe that considering the interaction between individuals’
affective states and their current psychological and physical
environments has exciting implications for understanding
what might otherwise be puzzling findings, and it has the
potential to generate new research questions. For example,
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Hunsinger et al. 229
cultural research demonstrates that Westerners value indepen-
dence (i.e., individualism) and tend to be insensitive to contex-
tual information, whereas Easterners value interconnectedness
(i.e., collectivism) and tend to be highly sensitive to contextual
information (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The current
work suggests that happiness confers positive value on these
dominant thinking styles and encourages their use. Relevant
data come from studies conducted in South Korea and the
United States showing that rather than affecting both cultures
similarly, induced positive affect had the same effects as those
hypothesized here (Koo, Clore, Kim, & Choi, 2011). That is,
on a task in which Koreans engage in holistic reasoning and
Americans tend to employ analytic reasoning, happy mood
promoted the dominant reasoning style in each culture, and sad
mood elicited the opposite styles. These findings, along with
the results of our studies using Western research participants,
are consistent with the malleable mood effects hypothesis.
Authors’ Note
The first two authors contributed equally to this work.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: a
grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0956309) to
Linda M. Isbell and a grant from the National Institutes of Mental
Health (MH 050074) to Gerald L. Clore.
Notes
1. We used difference scores in all three studies because our hypoth-
eses pertained to participants’ relative judgments of the target as
extroverted (vs. introverted) rather than the absolute extremity of
their judgments. To ensure that our difference scores do not con-
ceal any odd patterns of data, we also analyzed the introverted
and extroverted variables as repeated measures and found identical
patterns (e.g., Keppel & Wickens, 2004). Furthermore, in each
study we found a significant negative correlation between partici-
pants’ introverted and extroverted target ratings (mean r = −.43).
An examination of the scatterplots demonstrated that individuals
who received large difference scores rated the target high on one
variable and low on the other, whereas those who received small
difference scores tended to rate the target near the midpoint on
both scales. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that our
use of difference scores does not conceal other patterns of data
and does not result in a loss of information concerning the
extremity of participants’ ratings.
2. In addition to the three-way interaction, we found a main
effect of stereotype, which revealed that participants rated
Carol as more extroverted when she was a sales representative
(M = 1.82, SD = 1.36) compared to when she was a librarian (M
= .20, SD = 1.83), F(1, 113) = 9.90, p < .01, η2 = .07.
3. Dropping the 10 participants who failed to detect the odor led to
similar findings. Specifically, participants in the happy condition
reported greater happiness (M = 6.62, SD = 2.76) than sadness
(M = 2.25, SD = 3.01), whereas those in the sad condition
reported greater sadness (M = 7.00, SD = 2.25) than happiness
(M = 2.60; SD = 2.18), F(1, 56) = 57.93, p < .001, η2 = .50.
4. In addition to the three-way interaction, we found a main effect
of stereotype, which revealed that participants exposed to the sales
representative judged her to be relatively more extroverted than
those exposed to the librarian (5.91 vs. −.25), F(1, 66) = 5.54,
p = .02, η2 = .07.
5. Dropping the 10 participants who failed to detect the odor led to
similar findings. That is, individuals exposed to the sales repre-
sentative judged her to be relatively more extroverted than did
those exposed to the librarian (5.78 vs. .27), F(1, 56) = 4.25, p =
.044, η2 = .06. This main effect was qualified by the predicted
three way interaction between mood, odor condition, and stereo-
type, F(1, 56) = 4.91, p = .03, η2 = .07. As expected, in the no-
odor condition, happy participants judged the sales representative
to be relatively more extroverted than the librarian (7.71 vs.
−4.17), t(56) = 2.49, p = .016, d = 1.38, whereas sad participants
judged the two similarly (2.71 vs. 2.00), t(56) < 1. In the odor
condition, sad participants judged the sales representative to be
relatively more extroverted than the librarian (9.5 vs. −1.5), t(56)
= 2.08, p = .04, d = 1.26, whereas happy participants judged the
two similarly (3.20 vs. 4.75), t(56) < 1. No other significant
effects emerged, all Fs < 1.
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