Individual Differences in Mood

Abstract

Taken as a whole, the evidence reviewed in the previous chapter shows that there is sufficient uniformity in how we respond to mood-inducing events so that nomothetic generalizations are both possible and fruitful. And yet, to the average person, the most noticeable fact about mood is probably how widely individuals vary in their susceptibility to, and expression of, everyday moods. As Wessman (1979) puts it:

In some individuals… affective alternations are conspicuous and dramatic; in others, they seem such slight perturbations that we may wonder exactly what and how much they do feel. Certain people appear to maintain a very persistent emotional character: we find them generally brusque and irritable, always plaintive and sad, frequently tense and apprehensive, or basically zestful and optimistic. These… persisting emotional characteristics seem basic features of personality intimately related to the ongoing pattern and quality of individual lives, (p. 73)

Indeed, affective responding differentiates among individuals sufficiently well that Plutchik (1980) has chosen to define a “trait” as a “disposition to react to interpersonal situations with certain emotional reactions” (p. 173; italics added).