This study tested mood effects on product evaluation, varying information type and time pressure. In this experiment, happy or sad moods were induced in participants, then they were asked to evaluate products. The results showed that in the happy mood/non-time-pressure condition, a favorable evaluation was seen when complete information was provided compared to incomplete. However, when time pressure was induced, no such difference was observed. On the other hand, in the sad mood/ non-time-pressure condition, there was no difference in evaluation between complete and incomplete information, but when time pressure was induced, a less favorable evaluation of products was seen under incomplete relative to complete. The results provide support for the process in which participants depend on their mood as a source of information when inferring about missing information under reduced cognitive capacity.When people evaluate products, their evaluations often are influenced by their moods. For instance, a shopper in a good mood often will buy products unexpectedly; on the other hand, a person in a bad mood might be turned off by the pressure of salespeople. The effects of mood on product evaluation have long attracted the attention of consumer psychologists, and there is empirical support for this. For example, it was discovered that watching a pleasant film resulted in a more favorable evaluation for a new beverage (Dommermuch & Millard, 1967), and that people tended to have better images of products that they owned while in a good mood than in a bad mood (Isen, Shalker, Clark, & Karp, 1978). Facilitating consumer buying behavior is of great interest to marketers, and mood appears to be a major variable influencing buying.

The present study examined how disaster preparedness would change after people predicted their affective reactions in the event of a major earthquake. In Study 1, participants (N = 255) completed an assessment of disaster preparedness. One week later, participants predicted their thoughts and feelings if a major earthquake were to strike, and then responded to the motivation measure. Study 2 (N = 129) examined the status of participants' motivation after one month. The results showed that greater motivation was only seen immediately after affective forecasting, and the same level of motivation was not maintained after one month. When people imagine a potential earthquake the expected negative affective reactions are overestimated. Disaster preparedness allows people to mitigate their future negative affective reactions. In order to avoid these affective reactions, affective forecasters had greater motivation for disaster preparedness.

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This study examined the effect of mood on spontaneous and online impression formation when personal information was encountered. In an experiment (N=72), a time constraint was imposed in judging to assure that participants were forming spontaneous impression in encoding. The results showed a greater mood effect was found under limited time conditions as compared to non-limited time conditions, when the inputted individual information was highly related to the trait to be evaluated. On the other hand, the impression was not affected by mood regardless of time constraints, when the inputted individual information was less related to the trait to be evaluated. The implications of the results, when the inputted information was directly useful, were that the initial spontaneous impression affected by mood was utilized to form final judgments. However, the implication of the results, when the inputted information was of little use, it was difficult for participants to utilize the initial spontaneous impressions in forming final judgments, even if the initial impression was affected by mood. Therefore participants rated the stimulus person neutrally because they could not clearly does.