Previous research suggests that people often discriminate against outgroups on the basis of minimal information. Does temporary mood influence the occurence and extent of this outgroup bias ? Based on a multi-process Affect Infusion Model (AIM) (Fiedler, 1991; Forgas, 1995) it is predicted that both good and bad moods can accentuate intergroup discrimination, albeit under different processing conditions. In these three experiments, people in happy, sad or neutral moods have made reward allocation decision, and formed impressions about ingroup and outgroup members. As predicted, it was found that (a) when the relevance of group membership was low, positive mood resulted in faster, heuristic processing strategies, and greater intergroup bias; (b) in contrast, when the relevance of group membership was high, it was negative mood that enhanced intergroup discrimination as a result of slower, more motivated processing strategies. Reaction time data and mediational analyses confirmed that these mood effects were indeed linked to different processing styles. The complementary role of cognitive and motivational factors in mediating mood effects on intergroup discrimination is discussed, and the implications of this research for contemporary affect-cognition theories, and for real-life intergroup judgments and behavior are considered.
Abstract