title: Happiness as alchemy: Positive mood leads to self-serving responses to social comparisons.
abstract: People in a positive mood process information in ways that reinforce and maintain this positive mood. The current studies examine how positive mood influences responses to social comparisons and demonstrates that people in a positive mood interpret ambiguous information about comparison others in self-benefitting ways. Specifically, four experiments demonstrate that compared to negative mood or neutral mood participants, participants in a positive mood engage in effortful re-interpretations of ambiguously similar comparison targets so that they may assimilate to upward comparison targets and contrast from downward comparison targets.
authors.forename: Camille S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Diederik A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Stapel