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Many older adults eat poorly balanced diets and are physically inactive, posing a risk to their cardiovascular and mental health. The benefits of healthful living extend beyond cardiovascular health and disease risk reduction such that physical activity has been shown to positively affect mood state. This was a cross-sectional investigation completed at three senior lunch program sites in Charlotte, NC to assess the status and relationship of nutrition, physical activity patterns, and mood state in older adults, prior to the center offering a new nutritional and physical activity intervention. Some significant relationships between cardiovascular indicators and mood were found.

Bipolar disorder is associated with significant impairment in social functioning. The temporal sequence of day-to-day interrelationships between mood and social activity is not well understood, yet could inform targets for cognitive behavioral interventions. The present study examined associations between mood and social activity in real-time through ecological momentary assessments administered via smartphones. In all, 41 outpatients with bipolar disorder were provided with smartphones for 11 weeks and completed twice-daily surveys about affective symptoms and social activity. We assessed the ways in which symptoms at baseline are related to the frequency and type of social interactions in the EMA period. Furthermore, we analyzed the associations between social activity, concurrent and lagged self-ratings of mood state, and momentary positive and negative affect ratings. Participants’ mean (and SD) age was 46.9 (11.8) years, with 53.7% being women. Participants spent an average of 42% of their sampled time alone. The average time spent alone was lower for hypo/manic symptoms (36%) than for depressive symptoms (45%) with euthymic mood intermediate between the two (40%). Positive affect was higher and negative affect (e.g., sadness, anger) was lower during concurrent social interactions. Positive affect was lower during time spent alone, but negative affect did not differ from time spent alone or from other interactions. Lagged models indicated a stronger association between prior social activity and subsequent mood than the converse. Social activity tracked mood polarity over several months. More support was found for social activity influencing mood state compared to the converse. Monitoring social activity may facilitate targeted cognitive behavioral interventions in bipolar disorder.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of preterm infant massage by the mother on the mood state of mothers of preterm infants. METHODS: This experimental study assessed 52 mothers of preterm infants (born at 30-37 weeks of gestation) hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit of Afzalipour Hospital of Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Recruitment was done using the convenience sampling method, and participants were randomly assigned into intervention and control groups. In the intervention group, massage therapy was done once a day for 5 consecutive days. Infants in the control group received the usual care. Data were collected using a questionnaire of demographic information and the Profile of Mood State questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS version 19 (IBM Corp, Armonk, New York) and Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon, and χ(2) tests. RESULTS: Comparison of the mothers’ mean mood scores between the intervention and control groups showed no significant difference before the intervention (P = .51), whereas mean scores differed significantly after the intervention between the groups (P = .005). Mothers’ mean mood scores improved significantly in the control group (P = .02) and the intervention group (P < .001), whereas the intervention group showed a greater improvement (-4.155 vs -2.238). CONCLUSION: Those mothers performing massage on their preterm infants showed greater improvement in their mood compared with those in the control group. Teaching massage to the mothers of these infants could be considered as a possible intervention to enhance a mother’s mood and the quality of care she provides to her infant.

Summary Self-perpetuating activity in lateral orbitofrontal regions has been theorized to sustain the negative thoughts and emotions of depression. A new study demonstrates that disrupting such activity may yield rapid improvements in mood state, pointing the way to novel treatment strategies.

The Valence Hypothesis of cerebral lateralization of emotion suggests greater right hemisphere activation during negative mood and greater left hemisphere activation during positive mood. This can manifest as visual field attentional bias. Here, study participants completed an assessment of current mood state (PANAS) and made a drawing (Drawing 1). To induce positive or negative mood, participants played a game; then, the winner read a script depicting a positive interpersonal interaction and the loser read a script depicting a negative interpersonal interaction. Participants then drew a second picture (Drawing 2) and completed the PANAS. We hypothesized that the game outcome would change current mood state and hemispheric activation, which would be reflected in drawing placement. The placement of Drawing 2 moved right for winners and left for losers. Winners experienced a greater increase in positive affect from Time 1 to Time 2 than losers and had decreased negative affect from Time 1. Losers had decreased positive affect from Time 1 and had a greater increase in negative affect from Time 1 to Time 2 than winners. Our results suggest that change in current mood state may be objectively observed by evaluating hemispatial bias reflective of brain hemispheric activation with drawings.

Introduction Numerous studies have examined associations between sedentary behavior (SED) and mental health outcomes, however minimal research has investigated the reciprocal relationship between mood and SED. The purpose of this study was to examine the reciprocal relationship of SED with mood in young adults. Methods 430 adults (49.3% male) aged 21–35 provided valid objective activity data, in addition to an assessment of their mood. SED is defined as less than 1.5 METS (waking hours only). In addition, participants’ mood status (Total Mood Disturbance, TMD) was assessed by the Profile of Mood State (POMS) and total stress was assessed by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). SED was assessed at baseline, 6-months and one-year, while mood and stress were assessed at baseline and one-year. Results A cross-lagged, autoregressive clustered model was used to examine simultaneous changes over time in both mood and SED allowing for both clustering and adjustment of covariates (e.g., PSS) over time. Data suggests that TMD decreased significantly over one-year, suggesting improvement in mood (p = 0.05). There were positive associations between SED and TMD; this association increased over time (p = 0.04). Mean SED remained stable over the course of the study (p = 0.71). However, higher TMD scores were associated with greater mean SED (p = 0.005), and this association remained stable over the study period (p = 0.95). Conclusion These results indicate a reciprocal relationship between mood and SED suggesting that a decrease in SED can improve mood, likewise, an improved mood may decrease SED. However, the stronger association is mood status predicting time spent in SED.

Background Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) offers a highly valid strategy to assess everyday functioning in people with severe mental illness. Adherence is generally good, but several questions regarding the impact of study length, daily density of sampling, and symptom severity on adherence remain. Methods EMA adherence in two separate studies was examined. One sampled participants with schizophrenia (n = 106) and healthy controls (n = 76) 7 times per day for 7 days and the other sampled participants with schizophrenia (n = 104) and participants with bipolar illness (n = 76) 3 times per day for 30 days. Participants were asked where they were, who they were with, what they were doing and how they were feeling in both studies. The impact of rates of very early adherence on eventual adherence was investigated across the samples, and adherence rates were examined for associations with mood state and most common location when answering surveys. Results Median levels of adherence were over 80% across the samples, and the 10th percentile for adherence was approximately 45% of surveys answered. Early adherence predicted study-long adherence quite substantially in every sample. Mood states did not correlate with adherence in the patient samples and being home correlated with adherence in only the bipolar sample. Implications: Adherence was quite high and was not correlated with the length of the study or the density of sampling per study day. There was a tendency for bipolar participants who were more commonly away from home to answer fewer surveys but overall adherence for the bipolar patients was quite high. These data suggest that early nonadherence is a potential predictor of eventual nonadherence and study noncompletion.

Research on the effects of windows has clearly indicated that humans want and need daylight to perform and feel well in indoor environments. However, until now, beneficial skylight effects have rarely been investigated. The present laboratory study aimed to quantify temporary artificial skylight effects using a randomized controlled study design. One hundred healthy young subjects either stayed in a windowless office environment that was illuminated by fluorescent lamps or an artificial skylight system that provided a virtual view of a cloudless sky and sun. Subjects rated room atmosphere parameters and their mood states, and participated in two different decision-making tests. Our results indicated that study participants felt more connected to the nature and perceived the windowless test room as more “lively,” and less “tense” and “detached” under artificial skylight as compared to that under fluorescent illumination. Furthermore, under artificial skylight, subjects reported lower feelings of tension, anxiety, and claustrophobic symptoms, and a higher positive mood state. Finally, subjects made riskier as well as more selfish decisions under artificial skylight. Thus, daylight-substituting technologies may profoundly influence mood states and alter decision-making behavior in windowless environments.

Rumination is a well-established vulnerability factor for depression that may exert deleterious effects both independently and in interaction with stress. The current study examined momentary ruminative self-focus (MRS) and stress-reactive rumination (SRR) as predictors of depressive symptoms utilizing a smartphone ecological momentary assessment (EMA) design. 121 undergraduates responded to four text message alerts per day for one week in which they indicated the occurrence of life stress, rumination, and depressed mood. SRR, but not MRS, independently predicted increases in depressive symptoms. MRS interacted with depressive symptoms to predict increases in symptoms at the subsequent timepoint, supporting the deleterious effects of depressive rumination on future mood state. Interactions emerged between stress and both MRS and SRR, such that experiencing higher levels of stressors and rumination at an observation predicted greater increases in depressive symptoms. To our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate that state rumination moderates the effect of stress in predicting depressive symptoms using EMA methodology. Results suggest that rumination levels in response to stress vary within individuals and can have an important effect on depressed mood. Findings may have important clinical implications, as lessening individuals' tendency to engage in rumination following stress may help to alleviate depressive symptoms.

Displays with low pixel densities that were common in the 1980s and 1990s were shown to impair visual performance. Display technology, especially pixel density, has tremendously improved in recent years and new technologies allow densities of 264 ppi and beyond. Two experiments were conducted to test whether there are any measurable benefits of high pixel density displays (264 ppi) over moderate pixel density displays (132 ppi). In Experiment 1, participants performed a reading comprehension task on a display with either high or low pixel density. In Experiment 2, participants’ speed and performance in a proofreading task were compared using the same displays with high and low pixel density. There were no differences in reading comprehension and reading time (Experiment 1) as well as proofreading speed and performance (Experiment 2) between a 132 ppi and a 264 ppi display. However, subjective ratings of physical discomfort revealed significantly more complaints about headache and musculoskeletal strain in the 132 ppi condition than in the 264 ppi condition (Experiment 2). Reading comprehension, reading speed, and proofreading performance are unaffected by pixel densities above 132 ppi, but reading from high-resolution screens seems to be less exhausting at least subjectively. Thus, while large performance differences cannot be expected, displays with high pixel densities (264 ppi and above) have some advantage over displays with moderate (132 ppi or lower) pixel densities.

In this paper, I investigate whether the honesty of managers’ budget reporting depends on the state of their mood. The results from a laboratory experiment demonstrate that managers in a positive mood report their budgets more honestly than managers in a negative mood. Attaining a neutral mood state, however, does not increase honesty sufficiently to balance out the effects of a negative mood state. The hedonic contingency theory suggests that the cognitive process underlying a display of higher honesty when the manager is in a positive mood stems from the manager’s desire to maintain this mood by reporting the budget more truthfully. The results of supplemental analyses show that the effect of the manager’s mood on honesty remains stable over multiple reporting periods. By examining the expected firm profits, I reveal that a contract based on the assumption that a manager will be honest is more beneficial than a truth-inducing contract derived from economic theory. If the manager is in a more positive mood, this relative advantage increases due to the effect of mood on honesty.

Summary Purpose The purpose of the study was to assess value of jump height variation as an indicator of neuromuscular fatigue in response to three acute interventions: (1) incremental leg cycling until volitional exhaustion, (2) 70 drop jumps, (3) 24 hours sleeplessness; and (4) during 6-week period within a basketball competition season. Material and methods The typical markers of metabolic fatigue (blood lactate), exercise-induced muscle damage (muscle soreness, decrease in torque, increased blood creatine kinase activity), cognitive and emotional fatigue (information-processing speed and mood state) and volume of playing time of basketball players were analyzed in relation to changes in jump height. Results The findings of the study were: (1) metabolic exercise caused a major drop in jump height, which was correlated with blood lactate accumulation, and the recovery of both was rapid; (2) the jump height drop was associated with the muscle-damage condition, although the reduction in jump height was much smaller and the recovery was longer compared with that observed after metabolic exercise; (3) jump height did not change significantly after 24 h of sleeplessness, regardless of the fact that cognitive and emotional fatigue was evident; and (4) jump height variations did not accompany the stress magnitude of players during the basketball competition period. Jump height carries some value as a neuromuscular fatigue indicator in certain acute circumstances, but has limited value in estimating cumulative stress caused by extended basketball training or competition.

Relaxation techniques and napping are very popular strategies amongst elite athletes recovering from the psychophysiological demands of training and competition. The current study examined a novel relaxation technique using restricted environmental stimulation therapy in a flotation tank (FLOAT). FLOAT involves reducing the level of environmental stimulation while achieving a sense of near weightlessness through floating in an enclosed, warm, saline-dense water tank. Sixty elite, international-level athletes (28 male, 32 female) across a range of 9 sports, completed a ∼45 min FLOAT session following exercise training for their sport. Pre and post FLOAT, athletes filled out a multidimensional mood-state questionnaire (MDMQ) containing 16 mood-state variables as well as a question on perceived muscle soreness. Group data were analysed for pre to post FLOAT for all measured variables. Further analyses were performed on all variables for athletes that napped during FLOAT (n = 27) and compared to those that did not nap (n = 33). A single FLOAT session significantly enhanced 15 of the 16 mood-state variables (p Small (n = 3) to moderate (n = 6) effect sizes in favour of napping for 9 of the 16 mood-state variables were found when compared to the no nap group. FLOAT may be an effective tool for both physical and psychological recovery following training in elite athletes. Furthermore, napping in combination with FLOAT may provide additional benefits to enhance certain mood-state variables. This study serves as a pilot study for future research into the performance recovery of elite athletes following FLOAT.

The aim of this study was to measure self-reported affective responses—emotion and mood—in an ecological setting when an aperitif is consumed before dinner at a restaurant. The product of interest was an aperitif drink, a “Kir” (a traditional French alcoholic aperitif made of white wine with fruit liquor), which was presented to participants in an experimental restaurant, after which participants had a three-course dinner. The specific influence of the Kir on affective responses was studied in relation to its fruit liquor composition: apricot, grapefruit, and raspberry. Two approaches were used to measure self-reported affective responses, each involving a different questionnaire. The first approach was related to the measure of immediate feelings by using the ScentMove® questionnaire while participants were consuming their aperitif. Results showed that the three Kir variants were not discriminated. The second approach consisted of measuring mood change across the whole dinner experience, before the aperitif, after the aperitif, and after the dinner, by using the Visual Analog Mood Scales (VAMS). Results showed that the raspberry Kir variant was associated with a significant decrease in two negative mood attributes, tense and anxious, after the participants had the aperitif, as compared with their initial mood state assessed before the aperitif. This study demonstrates therefore that mood state changes can be measured in a natural environment and highlights that these changes are product dependent, the most familiar Kir variant being associated with a greater decrease in negative mood states. However, considering the lack of Kir variant discrimination while participants consumed their aperitif and considering the limited long-term moods’ changes across the dinner, this study also emphasizes and discusses the limits of the measures of emotion in ecological settings. Finally, it is suggested to conduct more studies, which compare the measure of self-reported affective feelings in both laboratory settings and ecological settings.

Given the evidence for the dysfunctional effects of rumination, the fundamental question remains: why depressed patients continue to ruminate over long periods of time? Watkins has shown that unconstructive repetitive thought is focused on “why”, aiming at detecting the personal reasons of negative events. This strategy leads people to find evaluative answers of personal inadequacy or negativity of the world. The research aims at (a) test the hypotheses that why RT is significantly correlated to negative mood, even when controlling for depressive symptoms; (b) test whether non-clinical participants really tend to prefer the “how” RT, when coping with an unexpected negative event of everyday life; this results would suggest that the “how” style is more functional than the “why” style; (c) exploring beliefs that may guide the choice between the “how” or the “why” modes; (d) investigate the influence of a previous choice on the subsequent thinking style. 212 participants have been recruited. We include questionnaires about rumination and depression and 8 vignette describing negative unexpected situations, followed by three tasks. The results confirm the detrimental role of why focused repetitive thinking on mood state and show a significant influence of a “why tendency”.

The reliability of online mood manipulations is potentially undermined by participants’ noncompliance behavior, e.g., skipping a part of the experiment or switching between web pages during the mood manipulation. The goal of the current research is to investigate (1) whether and how mood manipulations are threatened by noncompliance behavior, (2) whether it is confounded with the induced mood state as predicted by Affect Regulation Theory, and (3) what measures can be taken to control for the noncompliance. In two online-experiments, noncompliance behavior was assessed during the mood manipulation with movie clips by tracking interruptions of watching and page switches. The results support the affect regulation hypothesis demonstrating that people confronted with negative emotional content interrupted watching the video and switched between pages more often than people with positive content. Methodologically, this causes a threat to the internal validity of internet-based mood manipulation studies. To decrease the risk of noncompliance, the current study recommends to block skipping a part of the mood manipulation, detect page focus events and measure the time people stay on a page.

To date, very few studies have focused on autobiographical memory in patients with bipolar disorder. We examined whether mood state at the time of event encoding (i.e., manic, depressed, euthymic) influences subsequent recollection in these patients. We administered the Autobiographical Interview, a method that allowed us to dissociate episodic and semantic aspects of autobiographical memory. We also compared the memory perspective from which patients recollected these events. Patients were selectively impaired in recollecting episodic details of events encoded during mania but not depression or euthymia. No significant differences emerged between patients and controls for recollection of non-episodic details, regardless of mood state. Patients with bipolar disorder were also more likely than matched controls to recall memories from an observer perspective. These preliminary findings indicate a moderating influence of mood state at the time of event encoding on the subsequent recollection of autobiographical events in patients with bipolar disorder.

Purpose: Our objective was to relate immunological data for healthy but sedentary elderly women to aerobic power, strength, and mood state. Methods: We measured peak aerobic power and one-repetition maximum strength along with mood (depression and fatigue), quality of life and carbohydrate intake on 42 women aged 60–77 years. Standard immunological techniques determined natural killer cell count and cytotoxic activity (NKCA), proliferative responses to phytohemaglutinin and OKT 3 , various lymphocyte subpopulations (CD3 + , CD3 − CD19 + , CD56 + , CD4 + , CD8 + , CD56 dim and CD56 bright ), and markers of activation, maturation, down-regulation and susceptibility to apoptosis (CD25 + , CD28 + , CD45RA + , CD45RO + , CD69 + , CD95 + , HLA-DR + ). Results: Correlations of immune parameters with aerobic power and strength were very similar for absolute and relative immunological data. In the group as a whole, the only correlation with aerobic power was −0.35 (relative CD4 + CD69 + count), but in subjects with values −1 min −1 correlations ranged from −0.57 (relative CD4 + CD45RO + ) to 0.92 (absolute CD56 dim HLA-DR + ). In terms of muscle strength, univariate correlation coefficients ranged from −0.34 (relative and absolute CD3 + CD4 + CD8 + ) to +0.48 (absolute CD3 + HLA-DR + ) and +0.50 (absolute CD8 + CD45RA + CD45RO + ). Neither NKCA nor lymphocyte proliferation were correlated with aerobic power or muscle strength. Although mood state and quality of life can sometimes be influenced by an individual’s fitness level, our multivariate analyses suggested that depression, fatigue and quality of life were more important determinants of immune profile than our fitness measures. Conclusions: Psychological changes associated with aging may have a substantial adverse effect upon the immune system, and immunological function may be enhanced more by addressing these issues than by focusing upon aerobic or resistance training.

This study, in which 310 university students participated, was designed to investigate whether computer interfaces that offer human-like apologetic error messages influence users’ self-appraisals of performance in the computerized environment. The study consists of three phases. In the first phase, using the CCSARP (cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns) coding manual, apology strategy sequences were elicited from Turkish participants. Two of these apology strategy sequences were selected for the second phase, which is a test including experimental and control groups. The experimental groups were presented with the two apology sequences, and the control group was given a plain computer message. The second phase investigated whether any of these three messages were perceived as apologies. The results indicate that the two apology messages were perceived as apologies, but the plain computer message was not perceived as one. The third phase investigated the relationship between the users’ moods and their self-appraisals of performance after the transmission of the apologetic error messages. The findings show that the influence of apology messages on the users’ self-appraisals of performance depends on the participants’ mood state and the content of the apology messages.

Mood effects have been studied in consumer behavior literature, but prior research investigating the joint impact of mood and surprise on satisfaction is scant. To bridge this gap, this study examines the relationship among these three constructs. We manipulated customers’ pre-consumption mood and provided surprise cues with hypothetical scenarios in a 2 by 2 factorial design in a restaurant setting. The results show that a positive surprise yields high satisfaction without a significant effect from customers’ pre-consumption mood. Conversely, with a negative surprise, customers in a negative pre-consumption mood indicate lower satisfaction than those in a positive mood.

This series of articles demonstrates the complexity faced by researchers attempting to characterize functioning in geriatric neuropsychiatric populations from different perspectives, for different uses, and across different disciplines. The five articles reviewed cover a wide range of topics: one attempts to identify neural substrates of everyday functioning in older depressed patients; another discusses the various predictors of performance-based measures of functioning in cognitively impaired individuals; yet another describes the development of a new measure of decisional capacity for cognitively impaired individuals. Taken together, these articles also demonstrate that different ways of characterizing functioning, from self-report to performance-based capacity measures, yield quite different patterns of results. The report by Elderkin et al. provides an interesting examination of brain morphology in the frontal cortical regions and how it relates to self-perceptions of well-being and general feelings of vitality in healthy and depressed elderly people. 1 The authors

Empathy for the emotions of others may require simulatory engagement of corresponding autonomic arousal states. We tested the hypothesis that disruption of autonomic control impairs the ability to empathize emotionally with others. Fifteen patients with primary autonomic failure showed attenuated scores on the Mehrabian Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES), compared to both younger and older controls. This effect was not accounted for by age, gender, mood state or functional disability. These early observations provide preliminary evidence for a direct contribution of autonomic responsivity to the 'higher-order' social cognitive process of empathy, and may inform the dynamics of supportive care.

One hundred ninety-four (132 females, 62 males) college students at Arizona State University filled out questionnaires on their mood state, depression, coping strategies, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation in the period from September 6 to September 13, 2001. The present study compared the responses of students on these measures for those 91 students who completed questionnaires up to the day of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11 vs. those 86 who completed questionnaires in the two days following the attacks. At this university far from the site of the attacks, transient mood states nor depression did not differ for students before and after the day of the attacks, while a significant interaction of gender by time of testing was found for maladaptive coping, with males decreasing in reported use of such coping after the attacks. A strong main effect of day of testing was found for right-wing authoritarianism, but not social dominance, with students scoring significantly higher on this variable after as compared to before the attacks. Intercorrelations of these measures before and after the attacks were also compared.

Objective The authors examined the impact of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on longitudinal cognitive performance (controlling for mood state) in 69 community-dwelling, postmenopausal women. Methods The authors conducted a 5-year follow-up of cognitive performance in 37 postmenopausal HRT users and 32 non-users. The groups did not differ with respect to age, years of education, or inter-test interval. Results No main effect of HRT was observed on any of the cognitive measures, and depressive symptomatology did not affect the relationship between HRT and cognition. Conclusion Overall, our findings do not suggest that HRT affects longitudinal cognitive performance in postmenopausal, community-dwelling older women.

Papageorgiou and Wells (2001) reported that positive beliefs about rumination were elevated in depressed patients, using the Positive Beliefs about Rumination Scale (PBRS). However, this study had a relatively small sample and there is a possibility that there were confounds within this measure between the severity of depressed mood and endorsement of beliefs. This study attempted to replicate these findings within a larger sample, and to extend these findings to recovered depressed patients, who are known to demonstrate elevated rumination. Furthermore, a version of the PBRS adapted to reduce confounds with mood state and valence was also used. Consistent with predictions, both currently depressed and recovered depressed patients had elevated scores on both the original and adapted PBRS compared to never-depressed controls. The present findings confirm that positive beliefs about rumination are genuinely associated with elevated levels of rumination in depression-prone groups and indicated that previous similar positive findings (Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001) were not the result of methodological confounds such as criteria contamination in the PBRS or small sample size.

Effects of sustained exposure to emotional stimuli on affective reactions and their recovery were examined to determine whether increasing exposure to a specific emotional content (e.g., unpleasant) cumulatively affects physiological responses; and whether motivational activation persists following sustained exposure. Participants viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant IAPS pictures, presented in blocks separated by an inter-block interval. With increasing exposure to unpleasant pictures, startle magnitude showed greater potentiation, and corrugator EMG activity increased. Both affective startle and corrugator modulation persisted following exposure to unpleasant pictures. The cumulative effects of sustained exposure to unpleasant pictures were enhanced for those reporting higher state anxiety, consistent with the hypothesis that sustained aversive exposure leads to increased defensive activation. These findings suggest sustained exposure to unpleasant pictures may induce a short-term mood state, and may be a useful paradigm to study individuals who vary in symptoms of anxiety.

Objective The authors sought to determine the feasibility of treating elderly adults with bipolar disorder under standardized-treatment conditions. Methods Thirty-one patients age 60 and older with bipolar disorder were treated in standardized pathways. Mood state was checked at each study visit with the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression–17 item (Ham-D–17) and the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS). Results Defining “well days” as both Ham-D and YMRS scores of ≤10, the mean percentage of well days was 72.5 (range: 0%–100%) over study participation. Conclusions Treating older adults with bipolar disorder under standardized treatment is feasible and is associated with low symptom levels. However, most older adults with bipolar disorder do not experience sustained recovery.

Thematic analysis of free-response questionnaires explored the role of mood states and demographic factors in moderating preferences for natural environments, in children and adults. Individual differences influenced overall preferences (nature or not nature) but had few significant effects on between-mood comparisons. Current theories on the restorative properties of natural environments suggest that (i) the stressed mood state would be associated most strongly with a preference for nature and (ii) that demographic factors would not strongly influence preference for nature in the stressed mood state. Results lend only partial support to these views. When the sample was divided into sub-categories by age, gender, rural/urban home environment, proportion of nature around home environment, nature hobbies and nature holidays, the mood state relaxed produced a greater percentage of nature preference responses than stressed. Stressed was, however, ranked first or second for preference for green nature in 10 of the 13 sub-groups. The implications of the findings are discussed in the light of restorative theories.

Research has established the existence of mood induction in conditions of moderate to intense affective displays. Findings are less consistent with regard to for whom and under what circumstances mood induction occurs. The present study expands upon past work by examining the unique and interactive effects of target mood state (“depressed” vs. “depressed-anxious”) and participant gender on mood induction and interpersonal rejection. Participants viewed a video of either a pure depressed or concurrently depressed and anxious female target, then completed measures of mood symptoms, regard for the target, and willingness to interact with the target. Women reported similar mood symptoms in response to both videos, but men reported elevated depressed and anxious mood following the depressed-anxious video. Men were also more likely to hold the depressed-anxious target in lower regard, but no gender differences were found in willingness to interact with the target. The present findings suggest that women's displays of concurrent depressed and anxious mood, as compared to depressed mood alone, have particularly negative effects upon men's mood.

Objective The assessment of mood states in individuals with dementia is a challenging yet clinically useful task. The purpose of the present study was to examine the validity of the Visual Analog Mood Scales (VAMS) in individuals with dementia. Methods Thirty-one patients who met diagnostic criteria for dementia completed the VAMS and a modified Profile of Mood States. Results Authors found good convergent validity between all monotrait-heteromethod mood states. Excellent discriminant validity was found for VAMS Happy, Confused, Angry, and Energetic scales. Conclusion These results provide evidence for the validity of the VAMS in patients with dementia.

Previous research relating anterior asymmetry in the electroencephalogram (EEG) to emotional states has not taken the affective context of the testing environment into account. This may be an important consideration, as the preparation procedures themselves are somewhat aversive. The purpose of this study was to assess whether self-reported mood state before and/or after EEG cap preparation was associated with EEG asymmetry. Mood state was assessed with the self-assessment manikin before and after the application of the electrode cap. Men and women showed a shift toward a more negative mood state post-preparation. Negative mood post-preparation, but not pre-preparation, predicted relative right frontal activation in men. In contrast, negative mood post-preparation, but not pre-preparation, predicted relative left frontal activation in women. Results are discussed as they relate to gender differences in interpersonal engagement.

This study examines a broad range of negative feelings as possible antecedents of binge eating in bulimia nervosa (BN). Another goal is to explore the connection between negative feelings and the desire to eat as recorded continuously during two consecutive days. This is the first study comparing data from BN patients with a relevant clinical control group. Forty female BN patients, 40 female panic disorder (PD) patients, and 40 healthy women continuously recorded their feelings and the desire to eat while in their natural environment. Both patient groups reported more negative feelings than the healthy controls. BN patients had higher within-subject correlations between most negative feelings and the desire to eat than the two control groups. BN patients rated most feelings more negatively in the hour prior to binge eating than during the rest of the day. BN patients' general mood state worsened after binge eating but returned to prebinge levels after purging. The study provides additional evidence that unspecific negative feelings play an important role in the context of binge-eating behavior in BN.

We investigated the impact of mood states and task valence on cardiovascular reactivity in active coping. According to previous research, subjective demand is higher in a negative mood than in a positive mood, and cardiovascular adjustments are a function of subjective demand. Thus, we expected stronger cardiovascular reactivity in a negative mood than in a positive mood during task performance. University students (n=60) were first induced into either a positive or negative mood state via exposure to music. They then performed either a pleasant or unpleasant scenario completion task that provided opportunities for mood regulation. No effects were found on cardiovascular reactivity during the mood inductions. However, during task performance, systolic and diastolic blood pressure reactivity was stronger in a negative than in a positive mood. Task valence, which was successfully manipulated according to a verbal manipulation check, and post-performance mood changes had no significant impact. Results are interpreted as a further demonstration of the impact of mood valence on cardiovascular reactivity in active coping.

Recent cognitive-behavioral models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) emphasize the role of thwarted control efforts in the escalation of thought frequency, negative thought appraisal, and subsequent negative mood state in the development and persistence of the disorder. To date, no studies have investigated the relationship between in vivo appraisal of thought recurrences and distress over obsessional thoughts and subsequent mood state. In the present study, 84 nonclinical individuals completed a measure of general thought appraisal and then were randomly assigned to suppress or not suppress their most upsetting obsessional thought during an initial thought-monitoring interval. In a second interval, all participants received the “do not suppress” instructions. Suppression was not associated with an increase in thought frequency either immediately or subsequently. However, results indicated that appraisal of thought recurrences as signifying the presence of undesirable personality characteristics and as portending future negative events was a significant predictor of immediate and subsequent anxiety, as well as more negative mood state. Natural active resistance to the thought was predicted by in vivo appraisal of the importance of regaining thought control. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and clinical implications.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore preweaning mood state and dyspnea in mechanically ventilated patients. Methods: Before ventilatory weaning, 21 critically ill patients completed the short profile of mood states (higher scores equal greater disturbance), and a 10 cm dyspnea visual analogue scale (none to extremely severe). Weaning outcome at 24 hours was recorded. Results: The mean ± SD total mood disturbance (possible range, 0 to 16) and subscale scores (possible range, 0 to 4) were as follows: total, 6.10 ± 4.06; tension, 1.07 ± 0.64; depression, 1.16 ± 0.93; anger, 1.05 ± 0.82; vigor, 1.04 ± 0.84; fatigue, 1.96 ± 0.90; and confusion, 1.27 ± 0.91. Mean dyspnea was 3.22 ± 2.26 cm. Dyspnea intensity correlated negatively with vigor (r = –0.38, P

This study utilized startle reflex and reaction time (RT) measures to examine the hypothesis that anxious individuals exhibit an attentional bias for threatening information. High and low trait-anxious (HTA; LTA) participants performed an emotional Stroop task in which pleasant, neutral, and threat words were presented under conditions of anticipation, or no anticipation, of electric shock. Acoustic startle probes were presented during the interval between word presentation and production of the color-naming response. HTA participants showed longer color-naming RT for threat words than pleasant words under both shock anticipation and safe conditions of the procedure. Under safe conditions, startle patterns paralleled these effects with HTA participants exhibiting smaller blink responses—indicating greater allocation of processing resources—for threat words than pleasant words. Under shock anticipation conditions, HTA individuals showed an opposite response pattern: startle blinks were potentiated for threat words relative to pleasant, indicating that the emotional impact of the threat words was enhanced by the aversive mood state. Despite evidence that the startle response effects were limited by habituation to the first half (180 trials) of the procedure, these findings support the hypothesis that HTA individuals possess an attentional bias for threatening information and exhibit greater defensive emotional reactivity to threat cues during states of heightened negative affectivity than low anxious individuals.

Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1936) here (via mysterious mediumistic mechanisms) describe a syndrome, which probably emerged in the 1950s, and can now readily be observed at medical conferences. At its core, the syndrome is comprised of extreme abilities to compartmentalise information of the type found in scientific conferences, an episodic preoccupation with the surface of a science but inability to appreciate its substance (episodic logosagnosia) and a mood state that is heavily dependent on gratification from the range of outlets available at modern conferences. Current estimates of the frequency of the condition are that there are approximately 20 full-blown psychopharmacological carriers of the syndrome per 100 million populations. This should yield a figure of 200 in Europe and North America. If a similar phenomenon applies in other branches of medicine this would yield a further 1200 affected individuals in Western medical circles. It is of pressing interest to establish whether the Kraepelin-Fraud Syndrome exists to any degree in non-medical science, and whether there are differences between those sciences with and without significant commercial applications.

This study investigated the possible development of an attentional bias to cardiac-related words in subjects who recently experienced a myocardial infarction (MI). It was hypothesized that cardiac-related stimuli would have attention-capturing characteristics for post-MI subjects, and this bias would be moderated by level of anxiety, degree of cardiac-related worry, and the subject’s coping style. Post-MI subjects (n=33) and matched controls (n=31) participated in an attentional search task. The post-MI subjects failed to show the predicted group increases in attention allocated to cardiac stimuli, but a difference between groups still occurred as the control group exhibited directed inattention to cardiac stimuli. Subsequent analysis indicated those post-MI subjects who did evince an attentional bias toward cardiac stimuli had higher monitoring scores on a self-report measure of coping style. Level of emotional distress and cardiac-related worry failed to predict attentional bias for the post-MI subjects.

Miranda and Persons' (1988) mood-state hypothesis of cognitive dysfunction was tested in a sample of 30 previously depressed individuals and 33 individuals with no lifetime mood disorder. Participants completed the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS; Weissman & Beck, 1978 ) and a self-report measure of current mood (Visual Analogue Scale; Luria, 1975 ) both before and after a sad mood induction. The mood manipulation was equally successful across both groups, and reports of dysfunctional cognitions increased significantly from pre- to post-induction for the entire sample. Contrary to prediction, the magnitude of DAS change was equivalent for previously depressed and never-depressed participants. Furthermore, the positive relationship between DAS score and sad mood was equally strong in both groups at baseline. Thus, the mood-state hypothesis was not supported.

Negotiating the pursuit of multiple goals often requires making difficult trade-offs between goals. In these situations, consumers can benefit from using products that help them pursue several goals at the same time. But do consumers always prefer these multipurpose products? We propose that consumers’ incidental mood state alters perceptions of products in a multiple-goals context. Four studies demonstrate that being in a positive mood amplifies perceptions of differences between multiple conflicting goals. As a consequence, consumers are less likely to evaluate multipurpose products as being able to serve multiple distinct goals simultaneously. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings for marketers of multipurpose products.