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Original Article

What Makes Us Feel Good or Bad

Mood Induction and Individual Differences in a Job Interview Setting

Published Online:May 11, 2018https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000258

Abstract

Abstract. Affective science calls for methods to induce mood in an engaging and ecologically valid way. We present a method employing a naturally occurring scenario that fits these criteria: a job interview. Participants got positive or negative feedback from a fictive expert to induce positive or negative mood. After mood induction, we assessed participants’ decision making behavior in the so-called information sampling task (IST). Results show that our mood induction successfully changed valence, dominance, and state self-esteem ratings, while there were no differences in arousal ratings. Decision making in the IST was not influenced by the induced mood. Effect sizes of mood induction were equally high for positive and negative mood concerning valence ratings (d = .8) with participants scoring high on self-control showing smaller mood induction effects. We conclude that our mood induction technique is an effective and natural way to induce mood in the laboratory, meeting current criteria of affective science.

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