Prior Negative Mood Buffers Some Individuals from Subsequent Negative Events: The Moderating Role of Neuroticism

doi:10.4236/psych.2011.25069

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Psychology

2011. Vol.2, No.5, 445-449

Prior Negative Mood Buffers Some Individuals from Subsequent

Negative Events: The Moderating Role of Neuroticism

Weiting Ng

SIM University, Singapore City, Singapore.

Email: [email protected]

Received May 30th, 2011; revised July 1st, 2011; accepted August 2nd, 2011.

The effects of mood on cognition are well-documented. However, would mood influence subsequent emotional

reactions? The present research shows that prior moods interact with neuroticism to influence subsequent emo-

tional experiences. Low-neuroticism individuals who initially felt negative subsequently experienced less nega-

tive emotions toward a slightly unpleasant task, relative to those who initially felt positive. Conversely, there

were no mood effects on high-neuroticism individuals. This demonstrates that surprisingly, a prior negative,

rather than positive, mood buffers low- but not high-neuroticism individuals from the effect of a subsequent un-

pleasant event on negative emotions. The possible mechanism underlying this effect—negative mood repair—is

also discussed.

Keywords: Neuroticism, Mood Effects, Buffering Effects, Negative Emotions, Mood Repair

Introduction

Numerous studies have documented that moods influence

cognition and these mood effects on cognitive processes are

moderated by personality differences (e.g., Smith & Petty, 1995;

Rusting, 1998). But would prior moods also color people’s

subsequent emotions? Would someone initially feeling un-

happy feel better or worse, or remain as unhappy, after another

slightly negative event? And would this depend on personality

differences? This paper examines whether neuroticism moder-

ates prior mood effects on subsequent emotions.

Mood States a nd C og n i t ion

Bower’s associative network theory (1981, 1991) conceptu-

alized emotions as nodes that are linked to related concepts.

Experiencing an emotion activates the node, and activation

spreads throughout the network to other associated concepts,

such as memories and beliefs. This produces a mood-congruent

effect, whereby information or memories that are congruent

with the activated mood state are more easily retrieved or learnt

because these associations have been activated. In other words,

after a pleasant mood induction, individuals encode information

more positively, recall more positive memories, and make more

favorable associations; after an unpleasant mood induction,

individuals make more negative associations (e.g., Bower, 1981;

Rusting, 1998).

Although there is robust evidence of mood-congruent effects

(e.g., Aspinwall, 1998; Singer & Salovey, 1988), conflicting

findings of mood-incongruent effects also exist. In field and

laboratory studies involving natural and induced moods, Parrott

and Sabini (1990) found that participants in sad moods recalled

memories that were less negative than those recalled by par-

ticipants in happy moods. One possible mechanism that could

explain the occurrence of mood-incongruent effects is the mo-

tivation to repair negative mood states. People may attempt to

regulate or eliminate their negative moods by retrieving posi-

tive memories and making positive associations, resulting in

mood-incongruent effects. Conversely, people in positive

moods are motivated to maintain these moods, and would re-

trieve positive memories or make positive associations, hence

producing mood-congruent effects.

There is some evidence to support this mood-management

postulation. Josephson, Singer, and Salovey (1996) found that

people who recalled positive memories after a negative mood

induction became more positive than those who recalled nega-

tive memories, indicating that the retrieval of positive memo-

ries helped them regulate their negative moods. In addition,

Rusting and DeHart (2000) showed that mood-incongruent

memory retrieval occurred for participants who were assigned

to a mood-repair condition, whereas mood-congruent retrieval

occurred for those who stayed focused on the negative events.

This mood-management hypothesis was strengthened by find-

ings that individuals high in negative mood regulation traits

(e.g., high Negative Mood Regulation scores) showed stronger

mood-incongruent retrieval effects than individuals low in such

traits. Conversely, individuals low in negative mood regulation

expectancies showed stronger mood-congruent retrieval effects

(Rusting & DeHart, 2000). Recent experimental studies con-

firming that higher negative mood regulation expectancies

linked to more successful negative affect repair (Hemenover,

Augustine, Shulman, Tran, & Barlett, 2008) further supported

this conclusion.

Interactive Effects of Personality and Mood on

Cognition

Personality differences can also moderate mood effects on

cognition. For example, Smith and Petty (1995) found that

individual differences in self-esteem interacted with mood to

produce mood-incongruent effects—high (but not low) self-

esteem individuals who experienced a negative mood induction

generated more positive memories and recalled more positive

headlines than those who experienced a neutral mood induction.

W. NG

446

Individual differences in coping dispositions also yielded dif-

ferent mood effects. Repressers showed mood-incongruent

effects and recalled happy memories and generated pleasant

thoughts after an unpleasant mood induction, whereas nonrep-

ressers displayed mood-congruent effects (Boden & Baumeister,

1997). These findings illustrate how the effects of mood on

cognition are influenced by personality traits.

The importance of considering mood effects on cognition in

tandem with personality effects was highlighted in Rusting’s

(1998) review. She proposed that temporary mood states and

stable personality traits interact to influence emotional process-

ing in various cognitive areas, such as attention, interpretation

and judgment, recall, and autobiographical memory. Her review

documented numerous studies that yielded consistent evidence

showing that personality traits interact with mood states to

produce mood-congruent or mood-incongruent effects in the

areas of memory and judgment. The preponderance of evidence

substantiates the conclusion that effects of mood on cognition

are partly contingent on one’s personality traits, and neither

should be considered in isolation.

The Present Research

Extending on previous research that focused on the interac-

tive effects between personality and mood states on cognition,

this study investigated whether personality and moods also

interact to influence subsequent emotional experiences. That is,

do one’s feelings after a mildly unpleasant event depend on

one’s prior mood and personality? The effects on cognition

should translate to emotional experiences as emotion and cog-

nitive constructs (e.g., memory) are associated concepts and

should be similarly activated (/influenced). For instance, func-

tional imaging revealed that mood-congruent effects on mem-

ory arose because of the neural mechanisms involved in the

associative networks (Lewis, Critchley, Smith, & Dolan, 2005).

Specifically, the brain regions involved in the encoding of emo-

tional information were also involved in retrieval. This suggests

that processes responsible for mood effects on cognition apply

similarly to emotion.

The current research focused on the personality trait, neu-

roticism, because there was evidence that mood-incongruent

effects on memory and judgment occurred for individuals who

scored higher in negative mood regulation tendencies (Rusting

& DeHart, 2000). Moreover, individuals high in neuroticism or

negative affectivity showed stronger mood-congruent effects

and recalled more negative words and made more negative

judgments after a negative mood induction than those low in

these traits (Rusting, 1999). This suggests that neuroticism

differences in mood regulation tendencies influence whether

mood-incongruent or mood-congruent effects on cognition

occur, and could similarly influence mood effects on emotional

reactions to subsequent events. Past research has also estab-

lished that individual differences in affect repair ability account

for one source of individual differences in negative affect. Indi-

vidual differences in negative mood regulation expectancies

predicted repair ability; specifically those with higher expec-

tancies showed larger decreases in negative affect and larger

increases in positive affect (Hemenover et al., 2008). Similarly,

attempts at negative mood regulation predicted negative emo-

tions, and importantly, these differences in negative mood

regulation mediated the relation between neuroticism and nega-

tive emotions, accounting for neuroticism differences in nega-

tive emotions (Ng & Diener, 2009). Therefore, it reasons to

expect that neuroticism differences would moderate the effects

of prior mood, and hence affect subsequent emotional experi-

ences.

The goal of this study was to determine whether prior mood

would impact the effect of a subsequent unpleasant event on

negative emotions, and if this would be moderated by neuroti-

cism. Would a prior positive or negative mood buffer individu-

als from subsequent negative events, and would this differ for

individuals varying in neuroticism? In life, people often ex-

perience multiple events in succession. This research hence

enables us to examine how one reacts to subsequent unpleasant

events after encountering an initial negative event. It should be

emphasized that the “mood-incongruent effects” terminology

used in this study refers to effects on emotional experiences,

not on cognition, as traditionally used in the literature.

Based on past research evidence documenting that individu-

als higher in negative mood regulation expectancies showed

mood-incongruent effects on judgment and memory, the hy-

pothesis of this study was that after experiencing an initial

negative mood, low-neuroticism individuals would show mood-

incongruent effects for subsequent emotional experiences.

Specifically, they would feel less negative toward a subse-

quent mildly stressful task than those who first experienced a

positive mood induction. In contrast, high-neuroticism indi-

viduals should not show any mood effects, and would feel

negative after the stressful second task, regardless of their

initial mood.

Method

One hundred and thirty-two undergraduates (68 males and 64

females) from a Midwestern US university participated in the

experiment for partial course credit in an introductory psychol-

ogy course. Participants were randomly assigned to experience

a positive or negative mood induction. Participants in the posi-

tive mood induction recalled and wrote about something very

positive that happened in their lives, whereas participants in the

negative mood induction recalled and wrote about something

very negative that happened. As a manipulation check of the

mood induction effectiveness, participants’ reactivity to the

mood induction was measured (1 = extremely negative; 5 =

neither negative nor positive; 9 = extremely positive). Next, to

let participants experience a mildly unpleasant second task,

they worked on a difficult analytical reasoning task comprising

six questions for ten minutes. An example of an analytical

question used is illustrated here:

An island has exactly seven villages—S, T, U, V, X, Y, and

Z—and three roads—Routes 1, 2, and 3. The following is a

complete listing of the road connections on the island: Route 1

has its ends at S and U, and passes through T only. Route 2 has

its ends at T and U, and passes through V only. Route 3 has its

ends at X and Z, and passes through Y only.

Directly connected villages are those villages between which

there is a road connection that passes through no other village

on the way from one to the other.

Which one of the following villages is directly connected to

the most other villages?

W. NG 447

Table 1.

Correlations between neuroticism, reactivity to mood induction, and

subsequent negative emotions.

(A) T; (B) U; (C) V; (D) X; (E) Y

All participants then received slightly unpleasant feedback

stating that they performed below the 50th percentile. After that,

they reported the extent to which they currently felt these nega-

tive emotions (disappointment, frustration, sadness, and anxi-

ety), using a 7-point scale (1 = not at all; 4 = somewhat; 7 =

very strongly). The ratings were averaged to provide an overall

negative emotion score (M = 3.16, SD = 1.21, α = .83). At the

end of the study, a twenty-item neuroticism scale based on the

Big Five (International Personality Item Pool, IPIP; Goldberg et

al., 2006) was also administered. The reliability of the neuroti-

cism score (M = 2.49, SD = .64, α = .91) was good.

Negative mood induction Positive mood induction

N Reactivity N Reactivity

Reactivity –.29* 1.00 –.17 1.00

NE .55*** –.01 .18 –.07

Note: N = neuroticism; NE = negative emotions to second task; * p < .05; *** p < .001.

cism was significant, t(127) = 4.69, β = .39, p < .001.

High-neuroticism individuals experienced stronger negative

emotions than low-neuroticism individuals. The mood x neu-

roticism interaction was also significant, t(127) = –2.62, β =

–.21, p = .01. As predicted, tests of the simple slopes con-

firmed that mood had a significant effect for individuals low in

neuroticism (t(127) = 2.12, β = .30, p = .036), but not for indi-

viduals high in neuroticism (t(127) = –.86, β = –.13, ns).

Low-neuroticism individuals showed a mood-incongruent

effect—those who initially experienced an unpleasant mood

reacted less negatively to the second task than those who ini-

tially experienced a pleasant mood. Mean negative emotions

were estimated from the coefficients of regression equations

for participants who were high (+1 SD) or low (–1 SD) in

neuroticism and illustrated in Figure 1 (Aiken & West, 1991).

Viewed differently, the significant interaction also demon-

strated that among those who initially felt unpleasant,

low-neuroticism individuals reacted less negatively to the

subsequent event than high-neuroticism individuals (t(127) =

4.94, β = .61, p < .001). Conversely, for those who initially felt

pleasant, there were no neuroticism differences in emotional

reactions to the unpleasant second task (t(127) = 1.61, β = .18,

ns).

Results

The manipulation check confirmed that the mood induction

was effective. Participants in the negative mood induction (M =

4.00, SD = 1.49) reacted more negatively than those in the posi-

tive mood induction (M = 7.04, SD = 1.28), t(130) = 12.59, p

< .001. Preliminary analyses indicated that participants ran-

domly assigned to the two mood induction groups did not differ

in neuroticism, t(130) = –1.53, ns. The two groups (positive

induction: M = 3.29, SD = 1.18; negative induction: M = 3.03,

SD = 1.24) also did not differ in subsequent negative emotions,

t(130) = 1.21, ns. Preliminary correlations also indicated that

neuroticism was related to stronger reactivity to the negative

mood induction and higher subsequent negative emotions, but

not for the positive mood induction (see Table 1).

The regression examined how induced mood, mean-centered

neuroticism and their interaction term influenced subsequent

negative emotions. Reactivity to the mood induction was also

controlled for, as it was positively associated with neuroticism

for the negative mood induction. The main effect of neurotic-

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.2

2.4

2.6

2.8

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

Negative Positive

Initial moo d induction

Intensity of negative emotional experience

High

Neuroticism

Low

neuroticism

Figure 1.

Negative emotions experienced by high- and low-neuroticism individuals after a mildly unpleasant second task.

W. NG

448

Discussion

Extending on previous research that documented mood ef-

fects on cognition, the present study established that mood ef-

fects also occurred for actual affective experiences. Specifically,

neuroticism interacted with prior mood states to yield

mood-incongruent effects on subsequent emotional experiences.

Low-neuroticism (but not high-neuroticism) individuals showed

mood-incongruent effects—those who initially felt positive re-

acted more strongly to the mildly unpleasant second task and

experienced more negative emotions than those who were al-

ready feeling negative initially. In other words, unhappy low-

neuroticism individuals were less susceptible to the double-

whammy effect than unhappy high-neuroticism individuals,

possibly because they were already in the process of reducing

their negative emotions after the initial mood induction. What

this finding implies is that prior negative mood buffers low- but

not high-neuroticism individuals from subsequent negative

events. And instead, a prior positive mood does not yield buff-

ering effects, as would be conventionally expected.

A most likely mechanism underlying the mood-incongruent

effects shown here by low-neuroticism individuals could be

negative mood repair. Low-neuroticism individuals who ini-

tially experienced an unpleasant mood started to alleviate their

negative feelings and thus subsequently felt less negative emo-

tions after a second task, as compared to those who initially

experienced a pleasant mood. This explanation would also be

consistent with findings that high-neuroticism individuals ex-

perience stronger negative emotions in response to unpleasant

stimuli, and are less likely than low-neuroticism individuals to

repair their negative moods (Gross, Sutton, & Ketelaar, 1998;

Gross & John, 2003; Kokkonen & Pulkkinen 2001; Larsen &

Ketelaar, 1989). It also concurs with the research showing that

neuroticism differences in self-reported emotion regulation

partly account for the differences in negative emotions (Ng &

Diener, 2009). Work in the domain of mood regulation has

established that individuals low in neuroticism are more likely

to attempt down-regulating their negative emotions than indi-

viduals high in neuroticism. Attempts to eliminate or reduce

one’s negative emotions, or to turn them in a more positive direc-

tion, correlated inversely with neuroticism (Davies, Stankov, &

Roberts, 1998; Wood, Heimpel, & Michela, 2003). Therefore,

low-neuroticism individuals’ higher proclivities to repair their

negative moods after an initial unhappy experience may explain

why they are more buffered from subsequent negative events

than high-neuroticism individuals.

The concept of contrast effects is a possible alternative ac-

count that explains why people feel less negative after a second

minor unpleasant event if they first experience an unpleasant

event instead of a pleasant event. A contrast effect, which is

likely to occur when a stimulus is compared against an extreme

positive or negative event, may cause one to view a mildly

negative event as slightly positive in comparison to the extreme

negative event (Schwarz & Strack, 1999). Although this may

contribute to the observed mood-incongruent effects, this ex-

planation cannot account for the differential patterns between

low- and high-neuroticism individuals.

One limitation is that the present study examined only nega-

tive moods induced by the recollection of negative past events

and how people would subsequently react to a mildly unpleas-

ant laboratory situation. Thus, one cannot generalize to predict

whether similar buffering effects would be obtained for low-

neuroticism individuals in real-life if negative events of similar

intensity happen consecutively. It would be useful for future

research to explore this by conducting diary or longitudinal

studies. The present study also could not ascertain whether

negative mood repair was indeed responsible for the mood

effects for low-neuroticism individuals. By introducing a mood

regulatory manipulation, further studies can determine whether

the differential mood effects are due to neuroticism differences

in negative mood regulation.

In recapitulation, one can surmise that when a series of nega-

tive events happen chronologically, they do not simply sum up

and compound a person’s negative emotions. How one reacts to

subsequent mildly unpleasant events after encountering nega-

tive events is contingent on personality traits such as neuroti-

cism. Not everyone necessarily feels more negative or remains

as negative (e.g., mood-congruent effects). Instead, some indi-

viduals (e.g., low-neuroticism individuals) may display mood-

incongruent effects and show an improvement in mood. How-

ever, it is likely that their ability to improve their mood is also

contingent on the premise that they can repair their moods. If

their mood-regulatory efforts are prevented or thwarted, or

because they are instructed to engage in ineffective strategies, it

is possible these mood-incongruent effects will no longer be

present.

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