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9. The Mood System
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9 The Mood System William N. Morris A review of discussions of the mood c011cept reveals divCl';gent opinions as to Jvhat moods are, especially in terms of their relationship to emotions. In an effort to identifY the nature of mood, I reviewed research on the influence of mood on memory, judgment , and self-Jocused attention. Converging across experimental and correlational methodologies and across clinical and n011clinical populations, I found that elated and depressed moods are generally associated with mood-c011gruent memory and judgment, and that bad moods increase self-Jocus. Based on this evidence and a consideration of apparent antecedents of mood, I conclude that mood has the attributes ofan "evolved psychological mechanism, )) as described by Buss (1995). Specifically, mood appears to be sensitive to a particular class ofinput, namely, the adequacy ofresourcesgiven current levels ofdemand. Positive and negative disparities activate the mood system, causing it to influence other psychological systems in such a way as to maintain homeostatic balance between perceived resources and demands. I consider this conception of mood i11 relation to current and future areas of inquiry such as the influence of mood on informati011 processing, selfregulation of mood, and whether affective states such as anxiety and irritability qualifY as moods. I conclude that the intimate comlection between mood and subjective well-bei11g fol10117s from the idea that mood is a feeling-based predictor of the near-term prospects ofpleasure and pain. AT THEIR EXTREMES, moods produce uniquely complex and powerful states that afford great pleasure or pain. In her recent memoir of manicdepressive illness, Kay Jamison (1995) vividly portrays both. Depression is awful beyond words or sounds or images.. .. It bleeds relationships through suspicion , lack of confidence and self-respect, inability to enjoy life, to walk or talk or think normally, the exhaustion, the night terrors, the day terrors. There is nothing good to be said for it except that it gives you the experience of how it must be to be old, to be old and sick, to be dying; to be slow of mind; to be lacking in grace, polish, and coordination ; to be ugly; to have no belief in the possibilities of life, the pleasures of sex, the exquisiteness of music, or the ability to make yourself and others laugh. (p. 217) Yet no matter how dreadful (such) moods .. have been, they have always been offset by the elation and vitality of others; and whenever a mild and gentlish wave of brilliant and bubbling manic enthusiasm comes over me, I am transported by a pungent scent into a world of profound recollection-to earlier, more intense and passionate times. (211) Though Jamison is referring to moods that are outliers on the mood continuum, they share with their more mundane and manageable cousins the family resemblance that marks the mood system, namely, their capacity to influence behavior by producing feelings and thoughts regarding one's resourcefulness. In good moods, most goals seem possible of attainment; in bad moods, few do. I believe it is the registration of these changing prospects that produces the suffering and enjoyment associated with mood. In this chapter, I intend to review what we know about moods: where they come from, how they influence us and, in turn, how we influence or manage them. I believe that the pattern of findings that will emerge from this review is consistent with the speculations of early mood theorists who believed that mood operates as a cue in a self-regulatory system that controls goal-directed behavior . Because moods signal the adequacy of available resources given the level of demands that are impinging (Morris 1992), they constitute a feeling -based prediction about the likelihood of success of goal-directed behavior in the near term (Batson, Shaw, and Oleson 1992). Thus, the pain of depression is due to the inability to envision the experience of rewarding outcomes in the immediately foreseeable future. This suggests an intimate connection between mood and subjective well-being. 170 Well-Being A BRIEF MODERN HISTORY OF THE MOOD CONCEPT Currently, psychologists appear to mean one of two things when they use the term "mood." Some (for example, Forgas 1995; Izard 1993) regard mood as an attenuated form of emotion. Others (for example, Batson et al. 1992; Davidson 1994) see mood as a distinctive affective construct with a function that is different from emotion. The rather sharp differences between these two positions can be better understood in the context of a brief historical consideration of how the mood concept...