Volume 24, Issue 1 pp. 161-172
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Incongruent effects of sad mood on self- conception valence: It's a matter of time

Constantine Sedikides

Corresponding Author

Constantine Sedikides

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB # 3270, Davie Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270. U.S.A.Search for more papers by this author
First published: January/February 1994
Citations: 57

Abstract

A new hypothesis is proposed to account for the relation between sad mood and self- conception valence, the ‘first, congruency; then, incongruency’ hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, sad mood initially influences the valence of open-ended self-descriptions in a mood-congruent fashion, but after a short period of time self-descriptions become mood-incongruent. Subjects were placed into a sad, neutral, or happy mood state, and were subsequently asked to freely describe themselves in writing. The results were consistent with the hypothesis. Sad mood affected the valence of the first half of self-descriptions in a congruent manner, but affected the valence of the second half of self-descriptions in an incongruent manner That is, with the passage of time sad mood led to increasingly positive self-descriptions (i.e. equally positive as neutral mood did). Implications of the findings are discussed.

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