forgas, j - feeling and speaking, mood effects on verbal communication strategies

8/20/2019 Forgas, J - Feeling and Speaking, Mood Effects on Verbal Communication Strategies

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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

DOI: 10.1177/0146167299025007007

1999; 25; 850Pers Soc Psychol Bull Joseph P. Forgas

Feeling and Speaking: Mood Effects on Verbal Communication Strategies

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Feelingand Speaking: Mood Effectson Verbal Communication Strategies

Joseph P. ForgasUn i versity of New Sout h Wales, Sydney, Au strali a

What istheroleof affect in languageuse, and theproduction of

requests in i part i cul ar? Two experi ment s predicted and found

that (a) sad moods i ncrease and happy moods decrease request

poli teness, and (b) thesemood effects aregreater when consider- in g more ri sky and un conventi onal requests that requi re more

elaborat e processi ng. I n Experi ment 1, sad persons preferred

more poli te requests, and decisions about un conv ent ional

requests were parti cul arly sensiti ve to aff ecti ve in fl uences.

Experi ment 2 used an un obtr usiv e method to eli cit natu ral

requests i n a conversati on. Negati ve affect produced greater

politeness and longer delaysi n posi ng requests. Recall data and

medi ati onal analyses confi rmed that greater mood eff ects were

li nked to the more extensive processi ng recru it ed by u nconv en-

ti onal requests, consistent wit h the Af fect I nfu sion M odel

(AI M ). T hecognit i ve mechani smsthat medi ate mood eff ects on

lan guageproducti on are di scussed, and thei mpli cati ons of the

fi ndi ngs for strategic communi cati on and f or t heori es of af fect

and cogni ti on are considered.

V erbal messages are a key component of strategicinterpersonal behavior. People use language to achieve

their interpersonal objectives, to engage in symbolic

exchanges with others, to establish a coherent sense of

the self, and to con struct a shared un derstanding of th e

world (Mead, 1934; Vygotsky, 1962). Surprisingly, we still

know very little about h ow a speaker’s temporar y mood

may influence the production of strategic verbal mes-

sages, such as the formulation of requests. Request pro-duction often involves complex, elaborate cognitive

processing stra tegies, as speakers need to assess the rela-

tive costs and benefits associated with more or lessd irect

verbal forms (Clark, 1989; Forgas, 1985; Gibbs, 1985).

Recent research based on the Affect Infusion Model

(AIM) (Forgas, 1995a) suggeststha t mood ispar ticularly

likely to influence the outcome of tasks tha t require such

more elaborate and substantive processing strategies

(Fiedler, 1991; Forgas, 1994, 1995b; Sedikides, 1995;

Forgas, in press).

This article reports two experiments that seek to

extend current work on the effects of mood on socialcognition to the d omain of interpersonal behavior b y

exploring the role of affect in request production. Draw-

ing on recent af fect-cogn ition theor iesan d past research

on requesting, these studies seek to show th at negative

moods increase and positive moods decrease request

politeness. Furthermo re, these mood effects should be

accentuated when the request alternatives considered

are mo re risky and unconventional an d a re more likely

to req uire extensive processing, as suggested by the AIM

(Forga s, 1995a) .

Requesti ng as an I nt erpersonal Str ategy

Language is the dominant medium of interpersonalbeha vior, and strategic m essages such as requests play a

crucial role in everyday life. It is through th e judicious

use of requests that we achieve our goals, satisfy our

needs, manage social situations, and coordinate social

behaviors. Requests play a particularly importan t role in

many strategic encounters such as bargaining and nego-

tiation (P ruitt &C arn evale, 1993), obtaining h elp from

others (Dovidio, 1984; Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner &

Clark, 1981; Salovey, Mayer &Rosenha n, 1991), as well as

the management of personal relationships (Cunning-

ham, 1988; Fletcher &Fitness, 1995; H olmes &Rempel,

1989; Noller & Ruzzene, 1991). Field studies indicate

Author’sNote:Thispr ojectwas supported by a Special Investigator Award

from the Australian Research Council and the Research Prizefro m the Al-

exander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. The contribution of

Stephanie Moylan is gratefully acknowledged. Requests for reprints

should be sent to Joseph P. Forgas, School of Psychology, University of

New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia; e-mail: jp.forga [email protected];

Internet http://www.psych.unsw.edu.au/~joef/jforgas/htm.

PSPB, Vol . 25 No. 7, July 1999 850-863© 1999 by the Society for P ersonality and Social P sychology, Inc.

850


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that requests can b e of four types, d esigned to obtain

infor ma tion , goods, action, or perm ission (B lum-Kulka,

Dan et, & Gershon, 1985). D espite the great variety of

requestsin termso f content and form, most requestsca n

be characterized in terms of a single critical dimension:

their level of politeness or directn ess. Poli teness isa prag-

matic, normative concept (Brown & Levinson, 1987),whereas di rectn ess indicates the degree o f immediacy in

the semantic and syntactic formulation of the request.

Request politeness and directness are closely and

inversely related, and members of a culture share strong

consensual norms about the level of politeness implied

by more or less direct request forms, and they produce

their requests accordingly (C lark & Schunk, 1980;

Gibbs, 1983, 1985; Holtgraves, 1997). The everyday use

of requests is thus dominated by one overriding prag-

matic constraint: they should be formulated so as to

allow participants to present and mainta in an appro pri-

ate face or social persona (Giles & Powesland, 1975;

G offm an , 1974). To ach ieve this, requests need to be suf-

ficiently polite so as not to give offen se yet be sufficiently

direct to maximize compliance (Bavelas, 1985; Clark,

1989; Forgas, 1983, 1985).

Requesting is thus an inherently risky enterprise in

which the instrumental objectives (obtaining compli-

ance) need to be carefully balanced against interper-

so n a l c o n s i d e ra t i o n s ( av o i d i n g c au s i n g u p se t ) .

Although many routine conversations can be processed

in a mindless fashion (Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz,

1978), requests often require more elaborate and sub-

stantive processing ( Clar k, 1989; Gibb s, 1983). In deed ,

the pragmatic rules of request politeness are so elabo-rate that most children do not a dequately master this

register until ab out age 9 (Axia &Baron i, 1985). Formu-

lating req uests thus presents individuals with a particu-

larly demanding and complex cognitive task.

Requesters need to carefully estimate the risks and

likely costs and benefits associated with using m ore o r

less polite form s. Decisions ab out using more risky and

unconventional req uest forms may well require more

extensive processing—a po ssibility tha t will be evalua ted

here. The optimum level of politeness for a given request

is also influenced by a complex set of pragmatic vari-

ables, including age, status, gender, culture and person-

ality, the nature of the relationship, and the perceived

risk of compliance or rejection (Forgas, 1985; Gibbs,

1983, 1985; Holtgraves &Yang, 1990; Jordan &Roloff,

1990). These two experiments will evaluate the possibil-

ity that feeling good and feeling bad may significantly

color the way people perceive and interpret request

situations and the inherent risks of different request

alternatives, ultimately influencing their sense of confi-

dence a nd thus the kind of requests they prefer.

This affect-infusion effect should be greater in cir-

cumstances that require more elaborate, substantive

processing strategies. Several studies suggest that

unusual or unexpected informa tion often recruitsm ore

elaborate processing and produces greater af fect-

infusion eff ects (Forga s, 1994, 1995b). As polite con ven-

tional requests are the norm in most social situations(Clark, 1989; Forgas, 1985; Gibbs, 1983; Langer et al.,

1978), it was expected here that decisions involving

more risky, un usual, and impolite req uests would

require more elaborate, co nstructive processing a nd be

more influenced by a ffect-infusion effects. Such risky

and more un usual messages should also be better

remembered later on, providing indirect evidence for

the more extensive pro cessing they received (G ibbs,

1983, 1985). Of course, in some circum stan ces, it may be

polite indirect requests that require more elaborate

processing and are more subject to affect-infusion

effects—for example, when requesters seek to control,

manipulat e, or influen ce a high -power, high-status per-son ( Forgas, 1985).

M ood Effects on Request Strategies

What are th e mechan isms that allow affect to infuse

our thinking a nd behaviors, such a s request formula-

tion? Although this question has been a source of fasci-

nation to philosophers, writers, and artists since time

immemorial, psychological research on this phenome-

non is surprisingly recent. Early explanations empha-

sized either psychoan alytic (Feshb ach &Singer, 1957) or

associationist principles (Berkowitz, 1993). In contrast,

contemporary theories focus on the cognitive mecha-

nisms tha t link feelings and thinking (Blascovich &Toma ka, 1996; Bra nscombe & Coh en, 1991; Fiedler,

1988, 1990; Forgas, 1992a; Mayer, 1986; Mayer, McCor-

mick & Strong, 1995; Stroessner & Mackie, 1992). It

appears that affect can have two distinct kinds of effects

on cognition, (a) informational effects, influencing

what people think (the content of cognition), and (b)

processing effects, influencing how people think (the

process of cognition). Informational mood effects are

typically indirect, operating through memory mecha-

nisms involving th e selective priming an d greater use of

mood -related information (Bower, 1991; Forgas &

Bower, 1987; Forgas, Bower, & Krantz, 1984). The

greater availability of affectively primed information

may in turn influence the way people interpret complex

and ambiguousrequesting situationsand mayultimately

influence the kind o f req uests they produce.

In some evaluative judgments, mood may also play a

heuristic function, when people mistakenly use their

unattributed mood as information, relying on a “How do

I feel about it?” heuristic (Clore, Schwarz, & Conway,

1994). However, request production typically involves

Forgas / MOOD AND REQUESTS 851




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more than just heuristic processing, as it requires the

substantive, elaborate processing of subtle situational

cues (Clark, 1989; Gibbs, 1983, 1985). Affective influ-

ences on requesting are thus more likely to be produced

by affect-priming m echanisms dur ing substantive proc-

essing, ra ther th an the d irect, heuristic use of a ffect as

informa tion (Bo wer, 1991; Forgas, 1995a; Sedikides,1995). The vario us infor ma tion al and pro cessing conse-

quen ces of mood were recently integrated in a compre-

hensive multi-process Affect Infusion Model (AIM; For-

gas , 1992a ; 1995a) , in l ine wi th previous o ther

process-based theories (Fiedler, 1991).

In terms of this model, the extent of affect infusion

into cognition and behavior should varyalong a process-

ing continuum. The model identifies four alternative

processing strategies in terms of (a) th e kind of informa -

tion search strategies people use (open search vs. tar-

geted search) a nd ( b) the exhaustiveness of the informa -

tion con sidered in constructing a response (full search

vs. part ial search) . Two of the processing strate-gies—direct access of a previously stored response and

motivated processing in service of particular objective

such as mood repair—involve highly directed, targeted

information search strategies that are impervious to

af fect-infusion ef fects. Thus, high ly conventiona l, low-

risk, and routine requeststh at can be produced relatively

mind lessly using a simple, d irect a ccess strategy should

not be strongly influenced by mood. In contrast, when

tasks req uire some degree of construct ive thinking, peo-

ple need to ad opt either simplified heuristic processing,

or systematic substan tive pro cessing. These processesd o

allow affect infusion to occur, as affect can either directly

(in the course of heuristic processing) or indirectly

(through a ffect priming) inform th e construction of a

response.

To th e extent th at strategic communication such as

request production involves some degree of substantive

processing, a ffect prim ing is the most likely mech an ism

responsible for mood effects. Furthermore, these mood

effectsshould be greater as more constructive and elabo-

rate processing is required, as is the case when people

consider more risky and unconventional req uests. The

AIM can accoun t for much of th e available empirical evi-

dence for moo d effects (or th eir absence) in cognition

an d judgm ents to d ate ( Forgas, 1995a) . To be specific,several studies support the counterintuitive prediction

of this model that tasks requiring more elaborate, sub-

stantive processing a re also more likely to b e infused by

af fect (Fiedler, 1991; Forgas, 1992b, 1994, 1995b;

Sedikides, 1995).

Ai ms and Predictions

Producing a strategic request requires communica-

tors to engage in constructive, open information search,

relying o n their stored memories and inferences to

assess the situation and to calculate the likely impact of

their words. Prior research suggests that happy persons

tend to recall more positive information ; are more confi-

dent, ambitious, and helpful; set themselves higher

goals; overestimate the likelihood of success; and are

more likely to take moderate risks (Branscombe, 1988;Clark & Wad dell, 1983; Cunn ingham , 1988; Forgas,

1995a; Mayer, McCor mick, & Stron g, 1995; Milberg &

Clark, 1988; Sinclair & Mark, 1992). In contrast, sad

moods tend to produce more negative assessments of

the self, reduce self-confidence and self-efficacy, and

lead to mo re self-deprecating attr ibutions and more cau-

tious and risk-avoidan t judgments a nd behaviors (Cer-

vone, Kopp, Schauma nn & Scott, 1994; Forgas, et al.,

1984; Kapla n, 1991; Mayer & H an son, 1995; Sed ikides,

1992, 1994, 1995).

As a result of af fect-priming mecha nisms, happy and

sad m oods should ha ve a mood -congr uent influence on

the way speakers select req uest altern atives. Peo ple in ahappy mood should form m ore positive and mo re confi-

den t inferen ces due to the selective priming an d greater

accessibility of positive memories and experiences about

similar situations in the past and use more confident,

direct, and risky request forms. In con trast, sad people

might selectively recall incidents when they suffered a

loss of face due to overly direct requests and should

employ a more cautious, indirect, and polite requesting

strategy. Furthermore, these mood effectson requesting

were expected to be greater in circumstancesth at callfo r

more elaborate, substantive processing. Such more

extensive processing may be required when people con-

sider a more risky, uncon ventional req uest for m ra therthan a conventional, routine request form (Clark, 1989;

Langer et al., 1978). On e indication of mo re extensive

and detailed processing is better recall memor y for the

requests used lat er. The a ccuracy of recall for more o r

less risky, unconventional requests produced by ha ppy

and sad participants will also be evaluated here as a n

indication of the kind of processing strategy used by

requesters.

EXPERIMENT1

The first experiment was designed a s an initial explo-

ration of mood effects on requesting strategies. Weexpected people to adopt a more confident, risky, and

direct requesting strategy when experiencing a positive

mood, consistent with the greater availability of posi-

tively valenced thoughts and associations. In contrast,

people experiencing a temporar y bad moo d should pre-

fer more cautious, polite forms due to their more pessi-

mistic assessment of the felicity conditions for their

reques ts . Fur thermore , these mood e f fec ts were

expected to be grea ter when mor e risky, uncon vention al

852 PERSONALITYAND SOCIAL PSYCH OLO GY BU LLETIN




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requests requiring more substantive and elaborate proc-

essing strategiesa re considered, as predicted by the AIM

(Forga s, 1995a). These hypoth eseswere evaluat ed using

a broa d ra nge of situations in which req uesting occurs,

representing a variety of possible request types (Blum-

Kulka et al., 1985; Forgas, 1985; Jordan &Roloff, 1990)

to increase the ecological validity of the design.M ethod

Over vi ew and parti cipant s . Part icipants were rand omly

assigned to view positive, nega tive, or n eutra l videot apes

(the moo d induction) in an allegedly unrelated experi-

ment. Following mood induction, participants read 16

short scenarios representing four examples each of

requests for a ction, good s, informa tion, or permission.

They then rated their likely use of each of nine request

alternatives representing various levels of politeness in

each situation. There were 103 participants (53 females,

50 males) who did the study as part of their course

requirements; there were 36 persons (18 females, 18males) in th e happy condition, 22 in the contro l condi-

tion (12 females, 10 males), and 45 in the sad moo d con-

dition (23 females, 22 males).

M ood manipul ation . Videotapes were used to induce

happy, neut ral, or sad mood s (Forga s, 1994). This moo d

man ipulation was described as a separate study designed

to validate films for later use in a nother experiment.

This method ha s been exten sively tried a nd t ested both

in laborat or y and field research, and it has produced sali-

ent and enduring moods in the past (Forgas, 1994,

1995b) . The 10-minute films used included scenes from

(a) a popular com edy series (positive mood ), (b ) a pro-gram on architecture (control), and (c) a film d ealing

with d eath from cancer (n egative mood) . At the conclu-

sion of the films, a short film assessment questionnaire

was distributed, asking participants to rate their current

moo d on 7-point h appy-sad and g ood -bad scales embed -

ded amon g several distractor q uestions.

Request scenari os . Sixteen short req uest scenarios were

constructed; four req uests each were for action, goo ds,

information, or permission based on naturalistic tax-

ono mies of req uesting ( cf. Blum -Kulka et al., 1985; For-

gas, 1985). Some examples of request scenarios are the

following:

• Request for action. “You and some friend s are renting an

apartment. The knobs on the kitchen cupboard s need

replacing. You ha ve rung t he land lord to a sk him to b uy

some new knobs, so you say to him . . .

• Request for informa tion. “You have gone to see your lec-

turer to find out your grad e for the m id-session exa m.

You say to h im . . .

• Request for goo ds. “You ha ve been a sked to speak to a

school class about university study. Before you start, you

realize that there is no ch alk. Since you want to write on

the board you say to one of the children . . .

• Request for permission. “You are go ing to a par ty. Since

you don’t expect to be hom e until late, you want to bo r-

row your fath er’s car. So, you say to him . . .

Request alternati ves . For each of the 16 request situa-tion s, par ticipan ts were given nin e more o r less con ven-

tional and risky request alternatives to consider. These

alterna tives were based on previous research on request-

ing and were designed to include a wide variety of stan-

dard linguistic req uest phrases. These ranged from

rather risky, confrontational direct commands (“Close

the window,” “I want you to close the window”), through

intermediate forms such as suggestions and questions

(“ You should close th e windo w,” “ Will you close the win-

dow?”), to indirect, conventional and polite linguistic

formulation s using hints and veiled questions (“It seems

a bit cold in here,” “I s the window open ?”). The objective

in using nine alternative forms was to provide partici-pants with a b road and representative rang e of more or

less convention al ling uistic requ est possibilities.

As the perceived risk of these requestsm ay be psycho-

logically important in eliciting more or less elaborate

processing strategies, each of the nine different request

forms was separa tely rated on a 9-point risky/not risky

scale by an independent group of respond ents (N = 40).

This information was subsequently used to evaluate the

hypothesis that more risky, unusual requests tend to

recru it more elabora te, construct ive processing, increas-

ing the pot entia l for affect-infusion effects.

Procedure . Pa rticipants were tested in g roups of 10 to

15people and were rand omly assigned to the mood con-

ditions. At the beginning of the session, they were told

that two separate experiments will be carried out, one

dealing with the validation of films for a future study (in

fact, the mood-induction procedure) an d an other unre-

lated study about language use. Participants were then

shown the mood -induction videotapes and were asked to

complete a brief mood validat ion q uestionna ire, rating

their m ood on 7-point ha ppy-sad an d go od -bad scales.

Following the mood induction, the second study was

introduced as dealing with

the langua ge peo ple use in everyday situations. You willfind a number of common, everyday social situations

described belo w. For each situation . . . rate each of the

alternative requests shown in terms of how likely you

would be to use that fo rm o f request . . . on a 7-point

scale,

from 1 = extremely un li kely to use to 7 = extr emely li kely to

use . A careful debriefing completed the pro cedure. No

evidence of awareness of the manipulations or hypothe-





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ses was detected. The aims and objectives of the research

were explained, and care was taken to eliminate any

residual mood effects.

Result s and Discussi on

Mood validation . The an alysis of self-rated mood on

the combined happy-sad and good-bad scales (C ron-bach’ s alpha = .78) revealed tha t those who saw a happy

film felt significantly better than d id the con trol group,

t (56) = 7.96; p 1.0pro duced three factors accounting for

64.4%of the varia nce, with a correlation o f less tha n .10

between any two factors. The first factor, accounting for28.6% of the variance, was marked by the four most

polite, convention al, an d ind irect requ ests (e.g., Would

you mind gettin g some cha lk?I would like to write some-

thin g on th e boa rd . Will you get some ch alk? Co uld you

get some cha lk?), and was labeled politerequests . The sec-

ond factor, accounting for 19.6% of the variance, was

marked by the three intermediate request formsemploy-

ing statemen ts (e.g., There is no cha lk. I would like some

chalk. You should get some ch alk.). The t hird factor,

accounting for 16.2%of the variance, was marked by the

two most direct and impolite request forms (e.g., Get

some chalk. I wan t you to get some cha lk). Based on th is

ana lysis, ratings of the n ine request types were combinedinto three combined measures, indicating a person’s

preference for poli te , in termediate , and impoli te

request types respectively (Cronb ach’s a lpha > .77).

M ood effects on r equests choices . Next, an o verall an alysis

of variance was carried out on these combined prefer-

ence ratings. The an alysis evaluated th e effects of mood

(ha ppy, sad, n eutral), req uest politeness (polite, inter-

mediate, impolite), and request objective (requesting

action, goods, information, or permission) on prefer-

ence ratings. Results showed th at mo od h ad no signifi-

cant main effect on preferences. H owever, th ere was a

significant main effect due to request type, F (2, 100) =

6.33; p


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a sad moo d than by participants experiencing a positive,

F (1, 79) = 10.35, p < .01, or a neutral, F (1, 65) = 4.11, p <

.01, mood state (see Figure 1). In terms of a strategic

model of interpersona l communication , this result sug-

gests that dysphoric participants are least likely to

engage in what may be termed high risk , direct verbal

strategies when making requests. This pattern is some-

what similar to th e risk-avoiding b ehavior associated with

sad mo od both in no rma l and in depressed participants

(Forga s, in press; Otta vian i &B eck, 1988).

These results support th e main h ypothesis that mood

should h ave a greater influence on d ecisions about th e

use of more risky req uest types tha t are more likely to vio-

late cultural norms of politeness and th us require more

extensive and elabo rat e processing ( Clark, 1989; Gibbs,

1983). The fact t hat the m ore impolite, direct req uests

were also seen as m ore risky specifically supports t his

interpretation. In a somewhat similar vein, previous

studies investigating social judgments also report that

affect infusion is greatest when the targets are complex,

unusual, or ambiguous and thus require longer andmore substan tive processing strategies for a response to

be compu ted (Fiedler, 1991; Forgas, 1992b, 1994, 1995b;

Sedikides, 1995). We found somewhat similar mood

effects on other strategic messages, such as sel f-

disclosure in a recently completed series of experiments

(Forgas & Ciarro chi, 1999), suggesting that perceived

risk may indeed be a key variable mediating mood effects

on strategic communication.

However, given what we know about the complex

situationa l influences on langua ge production (Ba velas,

1985; G ibbs, 1985), it is possible tha t in d ifferen t circum-

stances, it may be the m ore polite request forms that

require more elaborate processing an d thus are more

open t o a ffect infusion. For exam ple, it is possible that

when seeking to con trol or ma nipula te high-status, pow-erful others, it is indirect, veiled requests that may

require more elaborate processing and be more subject

to a ffect infusion.

It is noteworthy tha t mo od effects were q uite similar

across the various request scenarios studied here, with

no interaction between mood and request goals. This is

as expected because si tuational di f f iculty was not

man ipulated here, and th ere is no reason to assume that

different request objectives (asking for good s, informa-

tion, etc.) should have intrinsically different processing

requirements. Indeed, the lack of interaction between

mood and reques t goa ls sugges ts tha t the e f fec ts

obtained here are quite robust and may apply across avariety of requesting con texts. Although the results of

Experiment 1 are clearly encouraging, these data were

obta ined in hypothetical situations using prestructured

request al ternatives. The second experiment was

designed to elabo rate on t hese findings in a more realis-

tic context and to provide more direct evidence about

processing d ifferences in the for m of recall da ta.

EXPERIMENT2

Although Experiment 1 presents consistent and com-

pelling dat a for mood effectso n requesting, these effects

have been obtained in the rather artificial context of alaborat or y study, using h ypothetical situations in which

participants were nat urally aware that their communica-

tion strategieswere under scrutiny. It may be argued tha t

interpersona l communication and strategic verbal m es-

sages are particularly subject to conscious monitoring

and confounding demand effects. The replication of

these findings in naturalistic situations in which partici-

pants are not aware that their verbal responses are

recorded an d an alyzed is thus of particular importance.

Thiswason e of the objectivesof the second experiment.

Experiment 1 suggested th at mo od effects were most

marked when participants considered unconventional,

problematic requests that were judged as more riskya ndwere most likelyto recruit elaborate, substantive process-

ing strategies. Experiment 2 was designed to link these

greater mood effects to more extensive processing

strategies, as indicated b y recall memor y data. If m ood

effects are indeed greater when a risky request receives

more substantive, elabo rate processing, we ma y expect

that people should also better remember more elabo-


Figure1 Thedifferentialinfluenceof positive,control, andnegativemoodonpreferencesfor polite,intermediate,andimpoliterequests.




8/15

rately processed requests later. Accordingly, in Experi-

ment 2, participants’ recall of their requests formulated

in ha ppy, cont rol, or sad moo ds will also be assessed.

M ethod

Over vi ew . An uno btr usive procedu re was used to elicit

and analyze naturallyproduced requestsasa function ofmood. Again, participants signed up for what they

believed to be two separate experiments, concerned

with the evaluation of a udio-visual stimuli (in fa ct, th e

mood -induction stage using films) and a subseq uent

study of social judgments. As in Experiment 1, partici-

pants were randomly assigned to th e mood conditions,

an d they viewed a film inten ded to prod uce ha ppy, inter -

mediate, or sad moods. Afterward, they were asked by

the experimenter to request a particular file from a

neighboring office and then deliver it to the experi-

menter. Their spoken request for the file was surrepti-

tiously recorded and analyzed. After the request epi-

sode, part icipants completed the mood val idationquestionnaire as d escribed in Experiment 1 and per-

formed an unrelated interference task that took about

15 to 20 minutes. Finally, their recall memory for the

exact words used in their requests was assessed. Partici-

pan ts were 78 stud ents (39 females and 39 males) com -

posing 26 persons (13 females and 13 ma les) in each of

the three mood conditions.

M ateri als and procedure . The same mood induction

procedure was used as in Experiment 1. As soon as the

mood induction film finished, th e experimenter turn ed

to th e person with th e following instruction:

It seemslikeI do n ot have the stimulusfile with me; while

I set up the next task, could you go to th e next off ice, and

ask the person there to give you the stimulusfile from the

filing cabine t, and brin g it to me? She will know what you

need.

All participants agreed to this request and proceeded to

leave the roo m to go to the next of fice to request the file.

The room t hey entered contained a concealed ta pe re-

corder, and their actual req uests were carefully re-

corded. These req uests were subsequently tran scribed

and were rated and ana lyzed in terms of several charac-

teristics such as their level of politeness, d irectness,friendliness, elaboration, hedging, and complexity. Sub-

seq uently, th e perceived risk of each of t hese requests

was also rated. Some participants formulated their re-

quest immediately after entering the room; others de-

layed making the request by making other remarks first

(such as introducing themselves or confirming that they

were in the right place). The effects of mood on the de-

lay in ma king th e request were also recorded and later

analyzed.

Immediately after the requesting episode, partici-

pants completed a mood validation questionnaire, rat-

ing their mood on 7-point happy-sad and good-bad

scales embedded amon g several distractor items. For the

rest of the session, they participated in an unrelated

social judgmental task that took about 15 to 20 minutes

to com plete. At the end , they were given a surprise recalltask and were asked to write down “word for word, or as

accurately as you can remember, the words you used to

request the file” in th e neighboring room. These recall

protocols were subsequently rated for overall accuracy of

recall on a 10-point scale by two independ ent rater s who

were blind to the mood condition, and achieved an

interrater reliability of .83. A careful debriefing com-

pleted the procedure. We found no evidence of any

awareness of the manipulations, and all participants

believed tha t the instruction to get the file was a genu-

inely impromptu req uest tha t was not part o f the sched-

uled experimen tal proced ure. To this extent, it appears

that we were indeed successful in obtaining and record-ing na tural req uests, despite the fact th at th e study was

carried out in a laborat or y setting.

Resul ts and Discussion

M ood vali dation . An an alysis of self-rat ed mo od o n the

combined happy-sad an d go od-bad scales (Cronb ach’s

alpha = .86) showed that people who saw a happy film

were in a significantly better mood than the control

group, t (50) = 9.22; p < .01, and th ose exposed to th e sad

film were in a significan tly worse mood , t (50) = 5.93; p <

.01( M = 2.01, 3.76, 4.96). Differences between the happy

and the sad groups were also highly significant, t (50) =

24.57; p < .01 (M = 2.01, 4.96). These results again con-

firm that exposure to films is a highly effective mood-

induction procedure and that these mood ef fects

endured until after th e unobt rusive requesting task was

completed.

M ood effects on requests . Participants’ responses were

analyzed in terms of the following six dependent vari-

ables: the degree of directness, politeness, friendliness,

elaboration, h edging, and complexity of each request

produced. Two raters, blind to the mood conditions,

were trained in rating each of these features. They read

each of the response protocols independen tly and rat ed

each request on each of six 7-point b ipolar scales(polite/impolite, direct/indirect, friendly/unfriendly,

elaborate/simple, hedging/not hedging, simple/complex).

Their judgments showed considerable interrater reli-

ability( .77). The ratings by the two raters were then aver-

aged and used as dependent variables in subsequent

analyses. Next, a principal components analysis of

request ratings was undertaken to create a smaller

number of dependent variables by combining highly

correlated scales, thus reducing the probab ility of Type 1





9/15

error in subsequent analyses. The factor analysis using

oblique rotation identified three factors with Eigenval-

ues >1.0, accou ntin g for 31.6%, 23.9%, an d 12.3%of the

variance, r espectively. The first fa ctor comp osed th e fol-

lowing three scales: polite/impolite, d irect/ind irect,

and friendly/unfriendly, an d was labeled poli teness . Two

scales, elaborate/not elaborate and simple/complex,loaded on the second factor were labeled elaboration . The

third factor was linked to ratings on the remaining scale,

hedging , and waslabeled accordingly. Three new depend-

ent variables were created from the six scale rat ings of

each req uest by combining the a ppropriate scales using

factor scores as weights (Cronbach’s alphas > .80). As a

preliminary analysis indicated no main or interaction

effects associated with gender, data for males and

females were combined in all ana lyses. In add ition, the

perceived risk of each request produced was also inde-

pend ently ra ted on 7-point risky/not risky scales by two

raters(r = .82), and these ratings were subsequently com-

bined to create a single risk measure.

Results confirmed th at moo d aga in had a significant

ma in effect on the politeness of these uno btr usively elic-

ited conversational requests, F (2, 75) = 9.22; p < .01. Sad

people avoided using direct, impolite requests com-

pared to con trols, F (1, 50) = 5.07; p < .05, or participants

who were feeling ha ppy, F (1, 50) = 6.41; p


10/15

ana lysis, req uests were identified a s polite, intermediate,

or impolite in terms of their position in the top, midd le,

or botto m third of a ll requests produced a s rated by the

two independ ent raters within each of the mood groups.

Results revealed a significant m ain effect for mo od, F (2,

69) = 6.47; p < .01. People in a sad mood remembered

their requests significantly better than did happy per-sons, F (1, 50) = 5.01; p < .05, whereas the differences

between the control group and the two experimental

groups did not reach significance (see Figure 3). These

memory effects suggest that dysphoria is more likely to

recruit a more systematic and analytic processing of

situationa l informat ion, with beneficial effects on subse-

quent recall (C lark &I sen, 1982; Forgas, 1995a) .

Request type also had a significant influence on

recall, F (2, 75) = 14.21; p


11/15

It is also critical to “examine no t only the significance

of the coefficients, but also their size” (Baron &Kenny,

1986, p. 1177). If mediation occurs, the effects of the

independen t variable on the d ependent variables must

be less in the t hird eq uation ( when the med iator is also

present) tha n in the second eq uation (when the media-

tor isa bsent). Such a pattern was obta ined here. Accord-ing to t he third regression a nalysis, when th e mediato r

variable (processing stra tegy) was included in the ana ly-

sis, the effects of mood were significantly reduced on

request politeness (β = .42 vs. .22, t (76) = 5.02; p < .01),

request elabora tion (β = .33 vs. .19, t (76) = 3.43; p


12/15

Yang, 1990), we still know relatively little about how

affect may influence the formulation of strategic mes-

sages. To th e extent t hat request production requires

elaborate inferences as speakers monitor and interpret

the situational requirements of the encoun ter, mood is

likely to infuse their responses. One of the main contri-

butions of these studies is that they extend the affect-infusion principle to the new doma in of request produc-

tion . The eviden ce obta ined h ere is also consistent with

prior studies suggesting th at even weak and tempo rar y

mood s can br ing about m ajor shifts in how people deal

with social information (Cervone et al., 1994; Forgas,

1995b; Kaplan , 1991; Mayer et al., 1995; Milberg &Clark,

1988; Sincla ir, 1988). Just a s happy peop le a re likely to

employm ore direct and impolite requests, theyh ave also

been found to be more confident, risky, creative, gener-

ous, and helpful in a number of other studies. In con-

trast, a sad mood seems typically associated with more

negative, slow, and careful reactions to social situations

as well as a reluctance to use impolite and d irect requestsas shown here (Berkowitz &Troccoli, 1990; Clark &Isen,

1982; Forgas, 1992a; Mayer et al., 1992; Forgas, in press).

More to the point, these results specifically suggest

that the nature and extent of mood effects on social

behavior may largely depend on the kind of informa tion

processing strategy ado pted by a person in a given situa-

tion , as pred icted by the AIM (Forga s, 1995a) . Strategies

that d o not require a high level of open and con structive

processing, such as direct access or motivated process-

ing, are lesslikelyto facilitate affect infusion. In cont rast,

more risky tasks requiring more generative, substantive

processing should be especially pron e to af fect infusion(Fiedler, 1991). The results of bot h experimen ts suggest

that preferences for low-risk, routine, polite req uests

req uiring less elabo rate processing show relat ively weak

moo d sensitivity. In con tra st, decisions ab out mo re risky,

problematic and impolite requests requiring substant ive

processing were fa r mo re sensitive to m ood effects. The

critical role of processing style in mediating mood

effects on requesting was specifically supported in

Experiment 2 in which recall was most accurate for

requests that were most risky and least conventiona l and

were th us mo st likely to be processed substantively.

Although recall rates provide on ly indirect evidence

about processing differences, these resultsa re consistentwith theoretical predictions of the AIM, and they suggest

that affective influences on thinking, judgments, and

behavior are neither simple nor unifor m but a re medi-

ated by the kind of processing strategy recruited by fea-

tures of the task.

Ot her explana tions are also possible, ho wever. Cou ld

it be that participants directly consulted their mood,

using something like the “H ow do I feel about it?” heuris-

tic when formulat ing their req uests (Clore et a l., 1994)?

There are several potential problems with this account.

First, because requests do not constitute an intrinsically

valenced response categor y, it isd ifficult to see how good

or bad mood could be directly used to inform more or

less polite req uest preferences. In an y case, the fact tha t

positive mood produced lesspolite and friendly requests

seems clearly inconsistent with a direct af fect-as-information mechanism, and suggests instead that

mood h ad a n indirect influence on people’s interpreta-

tion of the request context. Furthermore, according to

Experiment 2, greater mood effects were linked to the

better recall of presumably more extensively processed

information—a pattern that appears inconsistent with

the kind of simple, heuristic processing suggested by the

affect-as-informa tion model. It seems that the overall

pattern of affect infusion demonstrated here is most

consistent with the AIM and the operation of the a ffect-

priming mecha nisms in pa rticular.

Practi cal impli cations . Requests also play a crucial role

in mana ging everyday social life. It is through t he use ofrequests that we achieve our interpersonal objectives;

obtain goods, information, and services; and manage

social situation s. Mastering the ar t of requ esting is also a

critical skill in many everyday situations, including nego-

tiation and bargaining encounters (Pruitt &Carnevale,

1993), obtaining help from others (Dovidio, 1984;

Piliavin et al., 1981; Salovey et al., 1991), a nd man agin g

and maintaining rewarding personal re lat ionships

(Fletcher &Fitness, 1995; H olmes &Rempel, 1989). The

possibility tha t low-inten sity, transient mood s can ha ve a

significant impact on request formulation is likely to

have significant practical implications. For example,excessive politeness induced by negative mood may ulti-

mately reduce th e comm unication effectiveness of d ys-

phoric individuals. Furthermore, requests that a re inap-

propr iately self-effacing m ay also be p erceived a s either

man ipulative or indicating low self-esteem, leading to

the m ore critical evaluation of th e req uester.

Ineffective req uesting strategies induced by dyspho-

ria may thus be a critical factor in some of the commun i-

cation deficits frequently associated with depression a nd

the negative interpersonal experiences often accumu-

lated by depressed in dividua ls (O ttavian i &B eck, 1988;

Wear y, Marsh, & G leicher, 1991). Excessive positive

affect may also have deleteriouseffects on strategic inter-personal behaviors. In an intriguing study, Parrott

(1993) found tha t people will take steps to ton e do wn

their positive affect when expecting a demanding social

encounter, as if they knew tha t positive mood can also

impair t heir int erpersona l efficacy. Excessive directn ess

when formulating requests may be one of the dysfunc-

tional consequences of good mood, as demonstrated

here . The use of unduly direct requests may also

threaten people’s ability to maintain their positive





13/15

mood s, if it produces negative reactions from others. It

seems then tha t the ability to control, an d if n ecessar y,

constra in und uly positive affect ive states may also be an

importan t prerequisite for successful strategic intera c-

tions with others.

G reater awareness of the behavioral consequences of

positive or negative moods may thus be of considerableimportance to social skills training programs. As mood-

induced commun ication deficienciesa re a distinct possi-

bility according to the evidence collected here, it may be

possible to train people to b ecome more a ware of how

their good or bad moods may distort their assessment of

and responses to problematic social situations. Social

skills training may thus be employed to compensate for

mood biases in the use of strategic messages such as

requests. Consistent with this suggestion, there is some

convergent evidence th at m oods can have a significant

influence on how people plan and execute complex stra-

tegic encounters such as barga ining and how they react

to m essages directed at t hem ( Forgas, 1998a, 1998b; Mil-berg &Cla rk, 1988). Mood effects on strategic interper-

sona l behaviors such as requesting may also have practi-

cal implicat ions for the maintenance and manage-

ment of intimate relationships (Noller & Ruzzene,

1991; Reis &Sh aver, 1988). We alread y kno w tha t mo od

can influence perceptions and interpretations of com-

plex relation ship events, such as conflict episodes (For-

gas, 1994). As intimate relationships represent an

extremely rich an d complex stimulus dom ain for most

peop le (Fletch er &Fitness, 1995), even sligh t changes in

mood may pro duce d isproportiona te selective shifts in

how th e relationship and the encoun ter is assessed a nd

the kind of communication strategies people employ(G ottma n, 1979).

L imi tati ons an d fut ur e prospects . Notwithstanding the

clear and convergent results obtained here, there a re

also some obvious limitations to these findings. One

important concern relates to the ecological validity of

these results. The first experimen t employed h ypotheti-

cal situations, and the second study relied on a realistic,

uno btr usive proced ure investigat ing rea l-life requ ests.

Despite t he consistency of the results across these t wo

different tasks, it would be of considerable interest to

show that similar moo d effects can also occur in a wider

range of naturally occurring situations. Preliminar y sup-port for the generality of these effects was obtained in

recent studies, demonstrating mood effects in interac-

tive situat ions ( Forgas, 1998a, 1998b, in press). Future

research needs to explore the impact of mood s on lan-

guag e use in a variety real-life setting s (e.g., Mayer et al.,

1995). This is one of the objectives of our ongoing

research project.

It is also importa nt to n ote tha t the moo d effects on

requesting demonstrated here are highly process

dependent. The multiprocess model underlying this

work specificallyemph asizes that mood effects are medi-

ated by the kind of processing strategy people employ.

Processing choices in turn are determined by a variety of

external and internal factors, such as attention direc-

tion, motivation, cultural milieu, individual differences,

cognitive ca pacity, and the like (Berkowitz & Troccoli,1990; Clark &Isen, 1982; Forgas, 1994, 1995a; Mackie &

Wor th , 1989, 1991; Ma yer & Salo vey, 1988; Sa lovey &

Mayer, 1990). Future studiesm ay profitably explore how

other pra gmatic variables can impa ct on the processing

strategies used by communicato rs, and thus mediate the

ensuing mo od effects on req uest production. These two

experiments showed tha t the perceived risk and conven-

tionality of different req uest forms was one such variable

capa ble of recruiting mo re or less substan tive processing

strategies. Other factors, such as situational difficulty,

task complexity, cognitive capacity, and motivationa l

states can also prod uce d ifferent processing strategies,

and they deserve to be furth er explored in future workon affect an d langua ge use.

Further experiments may also benefit from develop-

ing a dd itional ways of mea suring processing strategies,

in addition to the recall measuresused here tha t provide

rather indirect informa tion a bout processing differ-

ences. For example, techn iques could be developed to

record and analyze processing latencies as happy and sad

persons formulate more or less direct requests in differ-

ent situations. Such procedures have been recently inau-

gurated in studies investigating m ood effects on mem-

ory and judgments, and they yie lded encouraging

results that showed that affect infusion is significantly

mediated by processing latency (Forgas, 1992b, 1994,

1995b; 1998b; Forga s &B ower, 1987). Using req uests in

our daily interactions presents people with a particularly

complex cognitive task. Selecting the right form of

words requires sophisticated inferences about th e par t-

ner an d the context, relying on selective online accesst o

a rich a rray of stored memories and a ssociations about

past interaction episodes. Based on the AIM, it was

argued here that temporary moods may influence how

people interpret a situation and the kind of requeststh ey

produce through selectively priming mo od-congr uent

though ts and ideas to be used in construc t ing a

response. These experiments confirm this pattern andshow that mood effects are accentuated when more

elaborate processing is required by more unconven-

tional, impolite requests.

It seems that more confident and optimistic infer-

ences in good moo d result in more direct and less polite

requests, whereas bad mood s may prime more pessimis-

tic expectations and therefore more cautious and polite

req uests. These results are co nsistent with recen t mult i-

process acco unts of af fect an d cog nition (Fiedler, 1991;





14/15

Forgas, 1995a). Much has been discovered about the

pragmatic rules that govern language use in recent

years, yet far too little is known about how a ffect influ-

ences strategic communication. Further research on th e

subtle influence of affect on verbal communication

should be of considerable theoretical as well as practical

interest, and it should contribute to our und erstand ingof the psychological mechanisms underlying strategic

interpersonal behavior.

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Received Decem ber 22, 1997

Revision accepte d Jun e 2, 1998


forgas, j - feeling and speaking, mood effects on verbal communication strategies

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