Mood and Stereotyping in Impression Formation

Impression Formation and Stereotyping

In forming an impression of others, we may either rely on detailed information about the target person or simplify the task by drawing on preexisting knowledge structures, such as stereotypes pertaining to the target’s social category (e.g., Brewer, 1988; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994). Consistent with the mentioned perspective, being in a good mood has been found to increase stereotyping consistently (e.g., Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Süsser, 1994), unless the target person is clearly inconsistent with the stereotype, thus undermining the applicability of the general knowledge structure (e.g. Bless, Schwarz, & Wieland, 1996). In contrast, being in a sad mood reliably decreases stereotyping and increases the use of individuating information (for a review, see Bless, Schwarz, & Kemmelmeier, 1996). Across many person-perception tasks, individuals in a chronic or temporary sad mood have been found to make more use of detailed individuating information, show less halo effects, and are less influenced by the order of information presentation and more accurate in performance appraisals than individuals in a happy mood, with individuals in a neutral mood falling in between (see Sinclair & Mark, 1992 for a review). Similar findings have been obtained for individuals’ reliance on scripts pertaining to typical situations (such as having dinner in a restaurant) versus their reliance on what actually transpired in the situation (Bless et al., 1996a). Throughout, individuals in a good mood are more likely to rely on preexisting general knowledge structures, proceeding on a “businessas-usual” routine; conversely, individuals in a sad mood are more likely to pay close attention to the specifics at hand, much as one would expect when negative feelings provide a problem signal.