Abstract

This study was performed to examine the influence of mood type, mood awareness and task importance on mood regulation. 208 Subjects(141 male, 67 female) participated in a 3(mood type: negative, neutral, positive) x 2(mood awareness: aware, unaware) x 2(task importance: important, unimportant) intergroup factorial designed experiment. The dependent measures of experiment were music selection and autobiographic memory recall. First of all, the influence of task importance on memory recall was observed. Subjects in the important task condition recalled fewer numbers of angry memories than subjects in the unimportant task condition. Secondly, the interaction effect between mood type and task importance on memory recall was observed. Subjects in the negative mood condition who were asked to perform important task recalled more numbers of happy memories. Subjects in the neutral mood condition who were asked to perform unimportant task recalled more numbers of happy memories. But against the expectation, the influence of mood type had no effect. Though subjects in the negative and positive mood conditions both selected relaxant as well as happy music, whereas subjects in the neutral mood condition selected relaxant music, they had no statistical meaning. And unexpectedly, subjects in the negative mood condition recalled more numbers of sad memories. Also the manipulation of mood awareness had no apparent effect, and three possible reasons were considered.