Mood-Congruent Memory

According to models of mood-congruent memory, individuals are more likely to recall positive material from memory when they are in a happy rather than sad mood. Following initial suggestions by Isen and colleagues (1978), Bower (1981) conceptualized these effects in an associative network model of memory. Moods, thought to function as central nodes in an associative network, are linked to related ideas, events of corresponding valence, autonomic activity, and muscular and expressive patterns. When new material is learned, it is associated with the nodes that are active at learning. Accordingly, material acquired while in a particular mood is linked to the respective mood node. When the person is in the same mood later, activation spreads from the mood node along the pathways, increasing the activation of other nodes, which represent the related material. When the activation exceeds a certain threshold, the represented material comes into consciousness.

This model makes two key predictions: First, memory is enhanced when the affective state at the time of encoding matches the affective state at the time of retrieval (state-dependent learning). Thus, we are more likely to recall material acquired in a particular mood when we are in the same, rather than a different, mood at the time of recall. Second, any given material is more likely to be retrieved when its affective tone matches the individual’s mood at the time of recall (mood-congruent memory). Thus, information of a positive valence is more likely to come to mind when we are in a happy rather than sad mood. Although both predictions received considerable empirical support in experimental and clinical research, this research also revealed a number of complications that are beyond the scope of this chapter (see Blaney, 1986; Bower & Mayer, 1985; Clore et al., 1994; Morris, 1989; Singer & Salovey, 1988). In general, mood-congruent recall is a relatively fragile phenomenon that is most likely to be obtained for self-referenced material, such as autobiographic events, that meets the conditions of both of the previously mentioned hypotheses: When something good (bad) happens to us, it puts us in a positive (negative) affective state, and its subsequent recall is facilitated when we are again in a similar affective state. Note that this situation simultaneously provides for matching mood states at learning and recall, thus satisfying the conditions of state-dependent learning as well as for matches between the valence of the material and the mood at recall, thus satisfying the conditions of mood-congruent memory.

From this perspective, mood effects on judgment are mediated by mood-congruent recall from memory: When asked how satisfied we are with our life, for example, we recall relevant information from memory. However, positive (negative) material is more likely to come to mind when we are in a happy (sad) mood, resulting in a mood-congruent sample of relevant information, and therefore a mood-congruent judgment.