The Effects of Mood Manipulation on the Recall of Neutral Stimulus

The Effects of Mood Manipulation on the Recall of Neutral Stimulus

According to research by Clark and Teasdale (1985), an individual‘s mood has a strong influence on memory of past events. Other studies have found that the experimental manipulation of mood via hypnosis (Bower, Monteiro & Gilligan, 1987) and music (Kihlstrom & Miranda, 2005,) affects memory, such that positive mood is more conducive to memory than negative mood. In the present research, I propose to test the effect of an experimental mood manipulation on recall of a neutral stimulus. Thirty participants will read a short emotionally neutral passage, after which they will be randomly assigned to watch either a happy or sad movie clip (to induce a happy or sad mood). Finally, all participants will be tested on their ability to recall the passage they read. I predict that participants in the happy mood condition will be more likely to recall the neutral stimulus than participants in the sad mood condition. Implications of these findings for research on memory and emotion will be discussed.