Mood Influence on the Appeal of Bad News

Abstract

Respondents were placed into a bad or good mood and then provided with reading choices. They chose magazine articles that featured either bad or good news. In agreement with theoretical expectations, women in a bad mood were drawn to good news, sampling significantly more of it than women in a good mood. Men did not show this preference, however. Gender-specific selection of news stories was further evident in that women in a bad mood sampled less bad news than did men in a bad mood, whereas women in a good mood sampled more bad news than men in a good mood did.