Social judgment involves an effective, though not infallible, information processing process. It also includes feelings: our judgments depend on our mood. We are all emotional beings, not programmed robots. The extent to which feelings affect thinking abilities is evidenced by the results of a relatively recent comparative study of happy and unhappy people (Myers, 1993, 2000). Unhappy people, especially those who have lost loved ones or are depressed, are prone to apathy, they are not in contact, and sometimes even hostile towards others. Their thoughts are mainly focused on themselves, and they are immersed in thought. If depressed people do not completely lose hope, a depressed mood stimulates active thinking — the search for information that makes the environment in which they find themselves more understandable and controlled (Weary & Edwards, 1994). Happy people, on the other hand, are strikingly energetic, determined, creative, and sociable. Compared to the unfortunate, they are more trusting, warm-hearted, and more sympathetic. People who were lucky, even if it was a small one, but still lucky (for example, when shopping in a shopping mall, they received some kind of small gift), a few minutes later, during a survey that has nothing to do with this event, they will certainly say that their cars and televisions are in perfect condition. much better, if you rely on their words, than those who did not receive gifts. Happy people are more resistant to frustration. Whether their happiness is temporary or long-lasting, they are more friendly, tend to forgive others, take criticism more calmly and understand it more correctly. They prefer long-term rewards to short-term small joys. If they have the opportunity to choose between joyful sights (people playing and laughing) and tragic pictures (funerals, natural disasters), they prefer the former and literally spend more time admiring them. Unhappy people mostly pay attention to the dark sides of life, prefer communication with less prosperous people and less entertaining novels, movies and music. It’s amazing how much influence mood has on thinking. Germans celebrating the victory of the national team at the World Cup (Schwarz et al., 1987), and Australians who watched the film “for the soul” (Forgas & Moylan, 1987), people seem kind—hearted, and life is wonderful. In 1990, after the match (but not before it!) Between the rival football teams of Alabama and Auburn, the triumphant Alabama fans considered war less likely and potentially less destructive than the dejected Auburn fans (Schweitzer et al., 1992). To a happy person, the world seems friendlier, the decisions he has to make are not difficult, and good news comes to mind more often (Johnson & Tversky, 1983; Isen & Means, 1983; Stone & Glass, 1986). However, as soon as the mood deteriorates, the train of thought changes dramatically. What used to be seen in a rosy light is now painted in gloomy tones. When we are in a bad mood, we primarily recall negative events (Bower, 1987; Johnson & Magaro, 1987). It seems that relationships with others are spoiled, and the Self-image is “diving down”. The future is plunged into fog, and the behavior of other people does not bode well (Brown & Taylor, 1986; Mayer & Salovey, 1987). Joseph Forgas, a professor of social psychology at the University of New South Wales, has repeatedly been struck by how deeply the feelings of people in a bad mood “penetrate their thinking. Their way of thinking — their memories and judgments — almost completely depends on their mood” (Forgas, 1999). And in order to understand the mechanism of this “mood invasion”, he began to conduct experiments. Imagine that you are a participant in one of them. Using hypnosis, Forgas and his colleagues first “immerse” you in a good or bad mood, and then offer to watch a video recording of your conversation with someone made the day before. If you’re in a good mood, you like what you see, and you’re able to notice a lot of flattering things about your self-control, interests, and social skills. If you are “immersed” in a bad mood, when watching the same video, you appear in a completely different light — a person who is often clamped, stressed, and unintelligible (Fig. 3.7). When the experiment ends and the researcher “returns” your good mood to you, you are relieved to learn that your judgments depended on him and now everything is fine. One can only wonder at this, but as Michael Ross and Garth Fletcher point out, we do not associate changes in our own perception with changes in mood (Ross & Fletcher, 1985). Rather, we tend to believe that the world has changed.

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