4 Discussion
The aims of the current study were to experimentally analyze the influence of different patterns of mood regulation tendencies, Big Five personality traits and their interaction on automatic and controlled mood changes. This is probably a pioneer study in the area of mood regulation where the criterion variable (mood changes) was measured (1) directly using self-report (MACL questionnaire), as well as (2) indirectly by means of emotional version of LDT.
Before referring to our specific hypotheses we would like to point at two important and more general results obtained in this study. Firstly, in the preliminary analysis we found that individual tendencies toward mood improvement/deterioration occur in four specific profiles labeled as
increasing, decreasing, hot and
cool. The
increasing type is characterized by high tendency toward positive mood improvement and negative mood deterioration, whereas the
decreasing type—by high tendency toward negative mood improvement and positive mood deterioration.
Hot type individuals declare they often use strategies leading to mood improvement (positive mood improvement, negative mood deterioration) as well as mood deterioration (negative mood deterioration, positive mood improvement), whereas participants representing
cool type use those two types of strategies very rarely. This research is the first to investigate these particular combinations of traits. Secondly, it seems that proposed procedure allowed us to grasp both automatic and controlled mood regulation strategies. Mood changes observed especially for the
decreasing type were registered in both high and low cognitive loading conditions. They manifested themselves in changes of the intensity of different mood dimensions as well as in changes of time reactions for adjectives in an emotional version of LDT. It revealed that the emotional version of LDT might be useful in examining the specificity of mood changes in full time dimension. It provides an opportunity to analyze temporal dynamics of mood regulation like time needed for recovery from induced emotions to optimal affective state without imposing self-insight (Lischetzke et al.
2011). More analyses are needed to assess validity and other possible applications of this mood measure in experimental studies.
Our results let us dispel some ambiguities concerning the impact of specific patterns of mood regulation tendencies on mood changes. The obtained data partially supported our predictions concerning mood regulation processes related to different mood regulation tendencies.
As we predicted in hypothesis 1, mood changes related to high tendency toward mood improvement consisted in positive mood increasing—they lead to increased energetic arousal and decreased tense arousal only after positive mood induction and only in low cognitive loading condition. Thus, the specificity of positive mood changes characteristic for the increasing type involved psycho-physiological energy mobilization and tension reduction. Analogical mood changes indices for participants representing this type were obtained also on indirect mood measure—emotional version of the LDT. Positive mood improvement for the increasing type was expressed by the linear decrease of time reactions to positive target words. Unexpectedly, our analyses suggested that high mood improvement tendency in the increasing type was not related to negative mood deterioration processes after negative mood induction.
The obtained results partially supported hypothesis 2. Mood changes observed for the decreasing people after positive mood induction and in both cognitive loading conditions manifested themselves in decreased energetic arousal and increased tense arousal. Thus the specificity of positive mood changes characteristic for this type involved especially physiological energy reduction and tension increase. Positive mood deterioration for the decreasing type was also expressed by the linear decrease of time reactions to negative target words during the LDT. Contrary to hypothesis 2, we did not find any results pointing that high mood deterioration tendency in the decreasing type might lead to negative mood improvement processes. No specific patterns of time reactions were observed after negative mood induction for this type.
Taking into account the above results, we are able to draw some interesting conclusions. On the one hand, high mood deterioration tendency is not always definitely maladaptive, as it does not lead individuals to negative mood deterioration, whereas high mood improvement tendency is not always unequivocally positive, as it does not provoke negative mood repair. On the other hand, it may be possible that negative mood induced in this study was not sufficiently explicit or intensive to trigger mood regulation repair. Moreover, mood regulation processes directed toward negative mood increase are probably more strongly regulated by situational factors or/and characteristics of psychopathology (Larsen
2000). Such hypotheses should be explored more closely in future research.
The obtained data suggest that the concomitance of low levels of mood regulation tendencies is related with more stable mood experience. We did not find any statistically significant mood changes predicted in for the cool type (characterized by low level of tendency toward mood improvement as well as mood deterioration). Moreover, our study did not reveal any clear pattern of mood changes predicted in hypothesis 1 and 2 for the hot type (characterized by high level of tendency toward mood improvement as well as mood deterioration). Only one result suggests that individuals representing this cluster experienced mood improvement processes after positive mood induction—their level of energetic arousal increased in both high and low cognitive loading condition. It is possible that for individuals in the hot cluster mood changes diverge simultaneously in different directions or the specificity of mood changes depends more on situational factors. The consequence of being hot should be explored in future research.
Our study also explored relationships between Big Fiver personality traits and the specificity of mood changes. In hypothesis 3 we expected that mood changes for high neurotic persons would consist in positive mood deteriorating (after positive mood induction) and negative mood improving (after negative mood induction) whereas for high extraverts—in positive mood improving (after positive mood induction) and negative mood deteriorating (after negative mood induction). What emerged, however, was a little bit more complicated pattern of results. As predicted in hypothesis 3, high Neuroticism was conducive to a strong energetic arousal decrease after positive and negative mood induction. Surprisingly, this effect was observed only in participants representing the decreasing type. We did not find any results indicating that high level of Extraversion contributed to positive mood improving or/and negative mood deterioration. Conversely, our results suggest that introverts representing the decreasing type are much more vulnerable to strong energetic arousal decrease after positive as well as after negative mood induction. Additionally, we found that for the increasing type high level of Consciousness is related with energetic arousal decrease. We may assume that this personality trait “weakens” the adaptive meaning of high tendency toward mood improvement leading to the reduction of psycho-physiological energy.
In the present study we asked also about the specific impact of individual tendencies toward mood improvement/deterioration and Big Five personality traits on automatic and controlled mood changes (Q1). As our study showed, the status of mood changes (automatic versus controlled) is related especially to individual tendencies toward mood regulation. We found that mood improvement processes characteristic for the increasing type were observed only in low cognitive loading condition. Thus, they require the use of more motivated and more effortful but maybe not always strictly controlled mood management skills. We may suppose that mood deterioration processes—observed for the decreasing type in both cognitive loading conditions—are constituted especially from automatic mechanism starting up/maintaining cycle of negative affectivity. Future research should analyze more precisely why people representing the decreasing type have problems with “switching up” to mood improvement processes. It may be related with another important implication of our study. Results obtained from emotional version of LDT suggest that individual tendencies toward mood regulation are related to differences in reactivity to affective stimuli. The existing literature implicates different cognitive resources as a potential mechanism of mood regulation. Our experiment showed that mood regulation processes observed in different regulative types manifested themselves in changes of reaction times for words specifically related to optimal affective state (negative words for the decreasing type, positive words for the increasing type). It is possible that, as a result of greater experience engaging mood improvement action, those representing the increasing type have greater reactivity to positive stimuli and (likely) greater cognitive resources available for mood improvement. An analogical relation appears probably between the decreasing type and negative stimuli.
Our findings may delineate a new area of research concerning different contributors of well-being. As our results showed the objective of SWB is not always happiness (see also North et al.
2011). People may differ in stable tendencies toward mood regulation and these tendencies may promote different moods (positive or negative) as desired. In other words, different mood regulation tendencies seems to be related with well-being to the extent that they lead to some beneficial outcomes, which are not always related with positive mood and which are maintained and pursued with flexibility. This assumption needs further clarification and research.
The results presented here may have some practical implications. Many classical as well as modern theories of psychotherapy try to identify relations between non-adaptive patterns of affective regulation and psychopathology (e.g. Leahy et al.
2011). An essential part of treatment is helping individual to overcome non-adaptive schemes of mood regulation by eliminating strategies leading to mood deterioration (Leahy et al.
2011) or maintaining positive feeling (Tugade and Fredrickson
2004). Our findings suggest that therapeutic techniques should concentrate on a wide variety of mood regulation strategies (not only related with mood improvement) and matched to the individual characteristic of the patient.
Although the results of the present study are promising, in the following we will discuss some limitations. One may be related with mood regulation tendencies measurement. To put it simply, are people always consciously aware of using strategies to influence their own mood? It is possible that some of the strategies assessed in the MRS scale, particularly those more popular, are used relatively habitually (Gross
1998) and people may not be explicitly aware that they are using such behaviors in order to regulate affect? Moreover, our conclusions might be limited by the procedure complexity which could interfere with the process of automatic as well as controlled mood regulation. Thus, we cannot explicitly conclude whether all observed mood changes were due to mood regulation processes or procedural factors.