Why do bad moods increase self-defeating behavior? Emotion, risk taking, and self-regulation.
Increased risk taking may explain the link between bad moods and self-defeating behavior. In Study 1, personal recollections of self-defeating actions implicated bad moods and resultant risky decisions. In Study 2, embarrassment increased the preference for a long-shot (high-risk, high-payoff) lottery over a low-risk, low-payoff one. Anger had a similar effect in Study 3. Study 4 replicated this and showed that the effect could be eliminated by making participants analyze the lotteries rationally, suggesting that bad moods foster risk taking by impairing self-regulation instead of by altering subjective utilities. Studies 5 and 6 showed that the risky tendencies are limited to unpleasant moods accompanied by high arousal; neither sadness nor neutral arousal resulted in destructive risk taking.
Leith
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Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7123, USA. rfb2@po.cwru.edu
Baumeister
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000786:Anger; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012309:Risk-Taking; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000523:psychology*