The congruence between the emotional valences of recalled episodes and mood states influences the mood congruence effect

Many investigators suggested that self referent tasks facilitate mood congruence effect. Self-referential tasks are distinguished from self-descriptive tasks and autobiographical tasks. When using an autobiographical task, there may be different emotional valences of stimulus words and of recalled episodes. This study used an autobiographical task to investigate whether the emotional valences of recalled episodes influenced the mood congruence effect. Fifty-one undergraduate students were randomly assigned to three types of induced-mood groups (positive, negative and neutral). Stimuli were 40 neutral-trait-adjective words, presented at a rate of one word every six seconds. Participants judged whether they could recall any of their autobiographical memory related to the word, and rated the emotional valence of their recalled memory. Results suggested that not only the emotional valence of the stimulus but also the emotional valence of the recalled is important for the mood congruence effect.