Receiving requests presents people with complex strategic choices. How does mood influence reactions to more or less polite requests? Based on the affect infusion model (AIM), it was predicted and found that (a) reactions to requests show a significant mood-congruent bias that (b) is greater for impolite requests that recruit more substantive processing. In an unobtrusive procedure, library readers saw pictures or text eliciting positive or negative moods. Their subsequent responses to more or less polite unobtrusive requests showed that negative mood produced more critical reactions and less compliance than did positive mood, and this effect was accentuated for impolite, unconventional requests. Superior memory for impolite requests confirmed the more substantive processing of these messages. The results support the AIM and confirm that different processing strategies mediate mood effects on language use. The implications of the findings for interpersonal behavior and for contemporary theories of affect and cognition are considered.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Axia, G. , & Baroni, M. R. (1985). Linguistic politeness at different age levels. Child Development, 56, 918-927.
2.
Baron, R. M. , & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
3.
Bavelas, J. (1985). A situational theory of disqualification: Using language to "leave the field." In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Language and social situations (pp. 189-213). New York: Springer.
4.
Becker, J. A. , Kimmel, H. D., & Bevill, M. J. (1989). The interactive effects of request form and speaker status on judgments of requests. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18, 521-531.
5.
Berkowitz, L. (1993). Towards a general theory of anger and emotional aggression. In T. K. Srull & R. S. Wyer (Eds.), Advances in social cognition (Vol. 5., pp. 146). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6.
Blum-Kulka, S. , Danet, B., & Gershon, R. (1985). The language of requesting in Israeli society. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Language and social situations (pp. 113-141). New York: Springer.
7.
Bohner, G. , Crow, K., Erb, H., & Schwarz, N. (1992). Affect and persuasion: Mood effects on the processing of message content and context cues and on subsequent behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 22, 511-530.
8.
Bower, G. H. (1991). Mood congruity of social judgments. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Emotion and social judgments (pp. 31-55). Oxford, UK:Pergamon.
9.
Brown, P. , & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge, UK. University Press.
10.
Clark, H. H. , & Lucy, P. (1975). Understanding what is meant from what is said: A study in conversationally conveyed requests. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 56-72.
11.
Clark, H. H. , & Schunk, D. H. (1980). Polite responses to polite requests. Cognition, 8, 111-143.
12.
Clark, M. S. , & Isen, A. M. (1982). Towards understanding the relationship between feeling states and social behavior. In A. H. Hastorf & A. M. Isen (Eds.), Cognitive social psychology (pp. 76-108). New York: Elsevier-North Holland.
13.
Clark, M. S. , & Waddell, B. A. (1983). The effects of moods on thoughts about helping, attraction and information acquisition. Social Psychology Quarterly, 46, 31-35.
14.
Clore, G. L. , Schwarz, N., & Conway, M. (1994). Affective causes and consequences of social information processing. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed., pp. 323-417). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
15.
Dovidio, J. F. , Allen, J. L., & Schroeder, D. A. (1990). Specificity of empathy-induced helping: Evidence for altruistic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 249-260.
16.
Fiedler, K. (1991). On the task, the measures, and the mood in research on affect and social cognition. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Emotion and social judgments (pp. 83-107). Oxford, UK: Pergamon.
17.
Forest, D. , Clark, M. S., Mills, J., & Isen, A. M. (1979). Helping as a function of feeling state and nature of the helping behavior. Motivation and Emotion, 3, 161-169.
18.
Forgas, J. P. (1983). Language, goals and situations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 2, 267-293.
19.
Forgas, J. P. (Ed.). (1985). Language and social situations. New York: Springer.
20.
Forgas, J. P. (1992a). Affect in social judgments and decisions: A multi-process model. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 227-275). New York: Academic Press.
21.
Forgas, J. P. (1992b). On mood and peculiar people: Affect and person typicality in impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 863-875.
22.
Forgas, J. P. (1994). Sad and guilty? Affective influences on the explanation of conflict episodes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 56-68.
23.
Forgas, J. P. (1995a). Mood and judgment: The affect infusion model (AIM). Psychological Bulletin, 116, 39-66.
24.
Forgas, J. P. (1995b). Strange couples: Mood effects on judgments and memory about prototypical and atypical targets. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 747-765.
25.
Forgas, J. P. , & Bower, G. H. (1987). Mood effects on person perception judgements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 53-60.
26.
Gibbs, R. (1985). Situational conventions and requests. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Language and social situations (pp. 97-113). New York: Springer.
27.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. Harmonsdworth, UK:Penguin.
28.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole &J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics: Speech acts (Vol. 3, pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.
29.
Isen, A. (1987). Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 20, pp. 203-253). New York: Academic Press.
30.
Isen, A. M. , & Levin, P. F. (1972). The effect of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 384-388.
31.
Isen, A. M. , & Simmonds, S. F. (1978). The effect of feeling good on a helping task that is incompatible with good mood. Social Psychology, 41, 345-349.
32.
Jordan, J. M. , & Roloff, M. E. (1990). Acquiring assistance from others: The effect of indirect requests and relation intimacy on verbal compliance. Human Communication Research, 16, 519-555.
33.
Kitayama, S. , & Burnstein, E. (1988). Automaticity in conversations: A re-examination of the mindlessness hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 219-224.
34.
Langer, E. J. , Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of "placebic" information in interpersonal interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 635-642.
35.
Levin, P. F. , & Isen, A. M. (1975). Further studies on the effect of feeling good on helping. Sociometry, 38, 141-147.
36.
Mayer, J. , & Hanson, E. (1995). Mood-congruent judgment over time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 237-244.
37.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
38.
Milberg, S. , & Clark, M. S. (1988). Moods and compliance. British Journal of Social Psychology, 27, 79-90.
39.
Ottaviani, R. , & Beck, A. T. (1988). Cognitive theory of depression. In K. Fiedler & J. P. Forgas (Eds.), Affect, cognition and social behavifor (pp. 209-219). Toronto: Hogrefe.
40.
Piliavin, J. A. , Dovidio, J. F., Gaertner, S. L., & Clark, R. D. (1981). Emergency intervention. New York: Academic Press.
41.
Salovey, P. , Mayer, J. D., & Rosenhan, D. (1991). Mood and helping: Mood as a motivator of helping and helping as a regulator of mood. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Prosocial behavior (Vol. 12, pp. 215-237). Newbury Park, CA. Sage.
42.
Schroeder, D. , Penner, L. A., Dovidio, J. P., & Piliavin, J. A. (1995). The psychology of helping and altruism: Problems and puzzles. New York: McGraw-Hill.
43.
Schwarz, N. , & Bless, H. (1991). Happy and mindless, but sad and smart? The impact of affective states on analytic reasoning. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Emotion and social judgments (pp. 55-71). Oxford, UK:Pergamon.
44.
Sedikides, C. (1995). Central and peripheral self-conceptions are differentially influenced by mood: Test of the differential sensitivity hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social psychology, 69, 759-777.
45.
Sinclair, R. C. , & Mark, M. M. (1992). The influence of mood state on judgment and action. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 165-193). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
46.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
47.
Weyant, J. M. (1978). Effects of mood states, costs and benefits on helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1169-1176.
48.
Wheeler, L. , & Miyake, L. (1992). Social comparison in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 760-774.
