Contextual questions prevent mood primes from maintaining experimentally induced dysphoria

Abstract

We investigated the effects of questions designed to increase a wider awareness of the context in which moods occur on mood-maintaining primes in induced dysphoria. These questions were incorporated, with the primes (negative Velten mood induction statements) into a scrambled sentence task. In Study 1, contextual questions produced a significantly greater reduction in despondency compared to control questions. Study 2 replicated this finding and also demonstrated that contextual questions reduced corrugator EMG response to repeated despondency-inducing statements. The results indicate that contextual questions can prevent negative primes from maintaining depressed mood, consistent with Brewin's (1989) suggestion that one mechanism of psychotherapy is reducing the activation of situationally accessible negative representations.