Mood Congruity in Children: Effects of Age, Imagery Capability, and Demand Characteristics

Abstract

The present study was designed to determine: (1) whether mood congruity shows up the same way in children of different ages; (2) whether experimental mood induction by a mental imagery procedure is more effective in subjects with high mental imagery capabilities; and (3) whether "acting as if one is happy or sad" results in the same biases as the real mood induction procedure. Five different groups were assembled, which received either a happy or a sad mood induction, a happy or a sad simulation instruction or a neutral instruction (control group). Instruction effects were measured on a task in which all subjects had to judge drawings of ambiguous facial expressions. Mood effects could be demonstrated for younger (n= 152, mean age 6; 11) as well as older children (n = 151, mean age 10;9), but only for good imagers, not for bad ones. Judgements of happy and sad children were biased in a direction congruent to the induced mood state. This mood congruity effect was not the result of demand characteristics as it did not show up in both simulation groups (i.e. children who were simply "acting as if they were happy or sad").