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Sad mood reduces inadvertent plagiarism: Effects of affective state on source monitoring in cryptomnesia

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Abstract

In two experiments, we explored the influence of affective state, or mood, on inadvertent plagiarism, a memory failure in which individuals either misattribute the source of an idea to themselves rather than to the true originator or simply do not recall having encountered the idea before and claim it as novel. Using a paradigm in which participants generate word puzzle solutions and later recall these solutions, we created an opportunity for participants to mistakenly claim ownership of items that were, in fact, initially generated by their computer ‘partner.’ Results of both experiments suggest that participants induced into a sad mood before solving the word puzzles made fewer source memory errors than did those induced into a happy mood. Results of Experiment 2 also imply that sad mood reduces some item memory errors. Implications for appraisal theories, such as the affect-as-information hypothesis, are discussed.

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Notes

  1. However, see Buchner et al. (2009) for evidence that memory for the context in which the face of a person with a history of cheating was encountered was better than memory for the context in which other types of faces were encountered.

  2. The degrees of freedom in these analyses were slightly reduced because three participants did not complete the first set of ratings in the mood manipulation questionnaire and four participants did not complete the second set of ratings.

  3. Including outliers who were originally excluded because they did not meet the story length, story content, or “bounce” criteria did not change the outcome of this analysis (p = .55).

  4. When we included in this analysis outliers who were originally excluded because they did not meet the story length, story content, or “bounce” criteria, the difference between mood groups failed to reach statistical significance, F (1, 54) = 1.10, p = .30 η 2p  = .02.

  5. Including outliers who were excluded because they did not meet the story length, story content, or “bounce” criteria did not change the outcome of this analysis (p = .95).

  6. One participant’s data were not included in this analysis because she or he did not make any errors in the Generate-New phase, hence the proportion of errors that were partner-plagiarisms could not be calculated. Including outliers who met the story length and content and “bounce” criteria for exclusion did not change the outcome of this analysis (p = .82).

  7. Including outliers who were excluded because they did not meet the story length, story content, or “bounce” criteria did not change the outcome of this analysis (p = .62).

  8. When we included in this analysis outliers who were originally excluded because they did not meet the story length, story content, or “bounce” criteria, the difference between mood groups became marginally significant at the α = .05 level, F (1, 41) = 3.79, p = .06, η 2p  = .09. Including outliers who were excluded because they did not meet the story length, story content, or “bounce” criteria did not change the outcome of any subsequent analysis.

  9. Six participants’ data (two happy and four sad) were not included in this analysis because they did not make any errors in the Generate-New phase, hence the proportion of errors that were partner-plagiarisms or self-plagiarisms could not be calculated.

  10. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially supported by a Dissertation Research Award from the American Psychological Association to the first author. Portions of this research were reported at the 21st Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science, San Francisco, CA, the 116th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA, and the 115th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA. We thank Marina Bullock, Kelsey Carlson, Caroline Coronado, Cari Day, Laura Higginbotham, Julie Kenney, Amna Khokar, Amanda Miller, Michael Patrizio, Richa Pradhan, Sophia Ra, Adrienne Saltz, Caitlin Santucci, Erin Sullivan, and Memona Tazamal for their assistance in conducting this research.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Butler University, 4600 Sunset Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, 46208-3485, USA

    Amanda C. Gingerich

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, 102 Gilmer Hall, P.O. Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4400, USA

    Chad S. Dodson

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Correspondence to Amanda C. Gingerich.

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Table 1 Mood manipulation check questionnaire
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Gingerich, A.C., Dodson, C.S. Sad mood reduces inadvertent plagiarism: Effects of affective state on source monitoring in cryptomnesia. Motiv Emot 37, 355–371 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9309-2

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