How does mood affect our predictions about the preferences of other people? This paper proposes a psychological mechanism bywhich positive affect influences people’s perceptions of the similarity between their own preferences and those of other people by decreasing the psychological distance between them. In two experiments, this research shows that people in a positive mood tend to assume that their own preferences are similar to others’more often than those in a negative mood do. These findings add to the growing evidence that affect influences how people process information and demonstrate that mood affects people’s predictions about others.
Abstract
I. Introduction
II. Conceptual Background
III. Ex. 1
IV. Ex. 2
V. General Discussion
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