illustrating a dynamic model of the mood-updating process in consumer behavior

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Psychology & MarketingVol. 17(3):165–194 (March 2000)� 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Illustrating a DynamicModel of the Mood-UpdatingProcess in ConsumerBehaviorMorris B. HolbrookColumbia University

Meryl P. GardnerUniversity of Delaware

ABSTRACT

Previous research has examined mood as an antecedent of variousconsumption-related outcomes and has explored how consumersreact to their moods via attempts at self-regulated consumption-based mood management. However, little attention has addressedmood as an affective outcome that reflects the dynamic unfolding ofconsumer experiences over time. The present study explores thelatter issue and proposes a model of the mood-updating processwherein future mood depends on past mood as altered by evaluativejudgments that are, in turn, influenced by consumption experiences,by predispositions, and by the previous mood itself. An empiricalexample illustrates this mood-updating model in the case of listeningto music. � 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

In recent years, researchers have paid increasing attention to the roleof moods in consumer behavior (Gardner, 1985; Isen, 1989). Special in-terest has focused on aspects of mood as an antecedent that shapesvarious consumption-related responses. For example, studies from thepsychology literature have shown that more positive moods encourage

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attraction to other people (e.g., Gouaux, 1971), more favorable evalua-tions of products owned (e.g., Isen, Shalker, Clark, & Karp, 1978), andincreased helping or generosity toward others (e.g., Isen & Levin, 1972).Further, consumer researchers have looked at ways in which mood—

again, viewed as an antecedent—prompts attempts at consumption-basedmoodmanagement. Thus, following amodel of self-regulationpro-posed by Carver and Scheier (1981) and applicable to the process oftrying to overcome a bad mood or to sustain a good mood (Greenberg &Pyszczynski, 1986), Kacen (1997) investigated, via in-depth interviews,how consumers select consumption experiences in a way that helps toadjust their mood state. She found mood management via such con-sumption strategies as exercising, reading, eating, watching television,and shopping.Meanwhile, a stream of consumer research has addressed the more

general nature of affective responses and the role of emotions in con-sumption (Cohen & Areni, 1991; Holbrook, 1986). Here, the preponder-ance of attention has focused on emotional responses to advertising(Aaker, Stayman, & Hagerty, 1986; Aaker, Stayman, & Vezina, 1988;Edell & Burke, 1987; Olney, Holbrook, & Batra, 1991), though a greaterinterest in the emotional aspects of the consumption experience itselfhas also begun to appear (Havlena & Holbrook, 1986; Holbrook, Chest-nut, Oliva, & Greenleaf, 1984; Kellaris & Kent, 1993; Westbrook & Ol-iver, 1991).Yet amidst all this interest in the role of affect, emotions, and moods

in consumer behavior, little attention has focused on mood as an evolv-ing outcome—that is, as a dynamic response to consumption experi-ences that unfold over time. Here—with such rare partial exceptionsas the recent work by Eliashberg and Sawhney (1994, discussed later)—key questions have remained unasked, much less answered. If moodsare output variables that characterize important affective consequencesof consumer behavior, how do these moods change in response to theprogression of consumption experiences? If the consumer begins in aparticular mood, what accounts for alterations in this mood? In short,by what process do moods develop over time? These questions are ad-dressed via an approach illustrated in the present article.

Definitions of Terms

In order to address these questions, it is helpful to define some key termsmore explicitly so as to distinguish conceptually among various impor-tant aspects of affect development.As used here, the term mood refers to constantly evolving general

affective states felt by individuals, whereas the term emotions refers tospecific affective responses prompted by particular consumption expe-riences. Thus, moods describe milder, more diffuse feeling states thatboth color and reflect the overall pattern of ongoing activity. By contrast,

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emotions indicate more intense, object-specific feeling states that re-spond to particular consumption activities. Because moods shift as lifeexperiences unfold, they develop over time during a sequence of con-sumption experiences (where those consumption experiencesmay them-selves arouse various emotional responses). The present article de-scribes a general model of mood updating—that is, how mood at timet or develops into which in turn develops intoMood Mood ,t�0 t�k

(where n � k � 0).Moodt�n

Although the structure of moods, emotions, and other affective statesis somewhat controversial, several studies have found consistent evi-dence for the existence of two primary dimensions—pleasure andarousal (Russell, 1980). Pleasure refers to the valence of a feeling state,whereas arousal refers to its level of activation. The two dimensionstaken together explain most of the variance in moods or emotions whenthese are viewed as feelings positioned in multidimensional affectivespace (Russell, Weiss, & Mendelsohn, 1989).Specific consumption experiences may tend to prompt certain emo-

tional responses that are shared by members of the relevant consumerpopulation. Emotions associated with a particular consumption expe-rience across people are here referred to as the tone of that experience.Moods and emotional tones can both be described with the two afore-mentioned dimensions—pleasure and arousal. The difference is thatmoods are person-specific, whereas tones are object-specific and pertainto particular products, activities, messages, or situations.The term evaluation is used here to refer to the degree to which a

consumption experience is liked or disliked. Such evaluations shoulddepend upon both the prevailing mood and the emotional tone of theconsumption experience itself. The manner in which evaluation re-sponds to mood or emotional tone may be complex. For example, somewell-liked television programs are pleasurable but not arousing (e.g.,soothing); others are less pleasurable but more arousing (e.g., inform-ative); and so on. Further, current evaluations of consumption experi-ences should shape future moods; liking what one consumes now shouldimprove one’s subsequent pleasure and arousal.Finally, the term predisposition refers here to a person’s tendency to

favor one kind of consumption experience over another. Some consum-ers enjoy baseball; others prefer the opera. Such predispositions shouldsteer the evaluations of consumption experiences above and beyond anyeffects due to moods or emotions; they therefore require statistical con-trols when investigating the development of moods over time.

A General Model of Mood Updating

As a partial answer to the questions raised earlier—namely, howmoodsdevelop and change in response to the progression of consumption ex-periences over time—a general model of mood updating appears,



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Figure 1. Overview of the general mood-updating model.

streamlined to its barest essentials, in Figure 1. This model depicts aprocess of affect development in which moods are updated according toinputs from evaluations of a sequence of emotionally toned consumptionexperiences. In this, as discussed later, it bears some resemblance to anemotions-based model of enjoyment developed by Eliashberg andSawhney (1994) and shows a more general similarity to dynamic ap-proaches proposed by Bagozzi, Baumgartner, and Yi (1992) and byBoulding, Kalra, Staelin, and Zeithaml (1993).Briefly, the consumer begins in Moodt�0. This mood—together with

Predispositions to favor one kind of consumption experience over oth-ers—encourages a first evaluation at time t � 1 in response to theEmotional Tone of an Original Consumption Experience evoked by therelevant product, activity, message, or situation: Evaluation �t�1

Predispositions, Emotional Tone of the Original Consump-f(Mood ,t�0

tion Experience). This evaluation next combines with the initial moodto shape the emergence of an updated mood at time t � 2: Mood �t�2

Then, the updated combines withf(Mood , Evaluation ). Moodt�0 t�1 t�2

Predispositions and the Emotional Tone of the Subsequent Consump-tion Experience to produce a further evaluation at time t � 3:

Predispositions, Emotional Tone of the Sub-Evaluation � f(Mood ,t�3 t�2

sequent Consumption Experience). (Here, as described later, interac-tions between Original and Subsequent Consumption Experiences andeffects due to the ordering of experiences—not shown in the figure—may also occur.) Finally, updates to produceEvaluation Moodt�3 t�2

mood at and so on, in antime : Mood � f(Mood , Evaluation ),t�4 t�4 t�2 t�3

evolving chain of effects that develop over time.The authors envision that this process of mood updating in response

to the emotional tone of a product-, activity-, message-, or situation-based consumption experience, given predispositions, occurs constantlyin the daily lives of all consumers and that transitions from Moodt � 0 to



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Moodt � 2 to Moodt � 4 happen continuously, seamlessly, and naturally asconsumers pursue the ordinary aspects of their everyday existence.Hence, at any given moment, consumers find themselves in a mood thatreflects the combined influences of their immediate past mood and theirpredispositions-based evaluations of recent emotionally toned consump-tion experiences.The model just described provides an overview of the mood-updating

process. However, to capture the richness of mood updating as a keyfacet of the present study, one must also consider at least two additionalfactors: the interaction between original and subsequent experiencesand the order in which a set of experiences occurs.First, the interaction between original and subsequent consumption

experiences relates to the emotional tones of the two sets of experiences.More specifically, the tone of the original experience and the tone of theexperience at the beginning of a set of subsequent experiences may bemore or less similar or different. Two experiences can have the sameemotional tone, for example, both high in pleasure and high in arousalor both low in pleasure and low in arousal. Or they can have differentemotional tones, for example, one high in both pleasure and arousal,the other low in both pleasure and arousal. In other words, they maymatch (positive interaction) or clash (negative interaction). Though suchamatch or clashmight be expected to exert a positive or negative impacton evaluative responses, few studies appear to have addressed this is-sue. However, in one potentially relevant empirical finding applicableto the case of listening to music (as pursued later in the present article),Holbrook and Anand (1990) observed a “sympathic shift” in which lis-teners’ preferences leaned in the direction of an emotional tone thatbetter matched their current mood (that is, their manipulated level ofarousal). On similar logic and all else being equal (including the poten-tial main effects of pleasure and arousal considered in isolation), con-sumers should tend to like matches and to dislike clashes (that is, torespond positively to consistency between the emotional tones of pastand present consumption experiences). Hence, via such an interactioneffect, the evaluation of a consumption experience may depend on theemotional tone of the experience that preceded it. For example, an ex-perience that is high in pleasure and high in arousal may be evaluatedmore favorably when it is preceded by other experiences of similar emo-tional tone than when it is preceded by experiences that are low in plea-sure and low in arousal.Further, consumption experiences can be structured so that their

emotional tones follow a sequence or progression over time—for ex-ample, from experiences high in pleasure and arousal to those low inpleasure and arousal or vice versa. Various researchers have found thatfeatures of the sequence of materials experienced affect the evaluationof the overall episode (Fredrickson &Kahneman, 1993; Hsee &Abelson,1991; Loewenstein & Prelec, 1993). Hence, the order in which such a



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sequence of consumption experiences takes place should influence eval-uations of subsets of these experiences, simply because their levels areoccurring in different sequences. For example, one should tend to likethe final members of an increasing set better than those of a decreasingset. Moreover, one’s mood should respond accordingly, even though theoverall or average emotional tones of the two sets are the same. Thus,one must also consider the order wherein consumption experiences ofdifferent emotional tones occur over time.

Purpose of the Study

The problem that confronts empirical study concerns the difficulty ofexamining a dynamic phenomenon like that just described by means ofconventional methods available to the behavioral researcher. In con-sumer research, dynamic models with time-dated variables have beenproposed by Nicosia (1966) and by Dominguez and Nicosia (1977) torepresent the effects of prior behavior on current attitude. In this spirit,Bagozzi et al. (1992) have studied the effects of past behavior on currentintentions and current behavior. Also, Boulding, Kalra, Staelin, & Zei-thaml (1993) have traced the expectations-based process wherein con-sumers update their perceptions of service quality with impacts on in-tended behaviors over time. Further, with specific relevance to the issueof mood updating, Eliashberg and Sawhney (1994) have recently pre-sented a dynamic model of enjoyment—applied to the case of motionpictures—in which Moodt (Pleasure and Arousal at time t) is trans-formed by the affective content of Scenet�1 (Pleasure and Arousal dueto a film’s content at time t � 1) to produce a transition to an AchievedEmotional Statet�2 (Pleasure and Arousal at time t � 2) that, in turn,produces Total Emotional Stimulationt�3 and Average Enjoymentt�n

(where the overall effect at time t � n depends on responding to a seriesof such scenes over time and is moderated by individual differences suchas those in propensity toward sensation seeking).Obviously, this formulation by Eliashberg and Sawhney (1994) bears

a strong resemblance to that developed independently in the presentstudy. However, their model appears to have been investigated primar-ily by computer simulations, with empirical tests confined to the ques-tion of whether global simulation-based estimates tend to predict over-all movie enjoyment (which they do at approximately r � 0.33, therebyaccounting for about 10% of the variance in enjoyment) rather thanexamining the issue of how the mood-updating process unfolds overtime. In other words, the Eliashberg–Sawhney conceptual frameworkis dynamic in theory, but their empirical test is static in practice.As its key purpose, the present study performs what is believed to be

the first empirical investigation of the dynamics that occur in affectivedevelopment as the process of mood-updating unfolds during the courseof consumption experiences over time. In applying this dynamic per-



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Figure 2. Illustrative application of the mood-updating model for the case of musiclistening.

spective, a way must first be found to create the mood-updating processin the laboratory in a manner that will permit its key variables to bepulled apart and studied as they evolve. Toward this end, the presentempirical study is intended as an illustrative application. Here, the termillustrative distinguishes the present approach from the hypothesis-testing orientation typical of the hypothetico-deductive method. Specif-ically, working hypotheses concerning the effects that should appear areadvanced. But most of these are intuitively plausible and not particu-larly newsworthy. Rather, primary interest focuses on the issue of trac-ing the dynamic unfolding of moods longitudinally. In particular, theauthors envision that this illustration may suggest laboratory proce-dures useful to subsequent dynamic analyses of mood development overtime.

ILLUSTRATION

Application to the Case of Musical Listening

The general mood-updating model depicted in Figure 1, as just de-scribed, suggested an empirical illustration reflected by the applicationshown in Figure 2. Specifically, this illustrative application deals withthe case of moods changing in response to emotionally toned musicallistening experiences. Note that music appreciation is just one of in-numerable consumption experiences that might lend themselves to thesort of approach proposed here. This aspect of esthetic consumption ap-pears well-suited to illustrating the shaping of moods according to the



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kind of affective development posited as central to the mood-updatingscheme (Bruner, 1990; Goldstein, 1980; Rosenfeld, 1985). However,other consumption phenomena that unfold over time—such as eatingfood, driving a car, watching television, attending a party, playing ten-nis, reading an article, and so on—can and should follow a mood-up-dating process comparable to that depicted in Figures 1 and 2.In the present illustrative application (Figure 2), subjects began by

listening to four pieces of music either high or low in both pleasure andarousal (Original P&A Experience). They then listened to six additionalpieces more moderate in pleasure and arousal but either increasing ordecreasing (that is, reverse ordered) in their levels of pleasure andarousal over time (Subsequent P&A Experiences). This overall patternof listening experience created four different situations with respect tothe way that the emotional tone of the consumption experience (plea-sure and arousal or P&A) changed over the course of the experiment:High–Increasing, High–Decreasing, Low–Increasing, and Low–De-creasing. Because the Subsequent P&A Experiences were always moremoderate in emotional tone than the Original P&A Experiences, theO � S Interaction involved either a closer transitional match (High–Decreasing and Low–Increasing) or a greater transitional clash (High–Increasing and Low–Decreasing) between the emotional tones of theOriginal and Subsequent P&A Experiences. While these experiencesprogressed, subjects intermittently provided assessments of theirmoods(pleasure and arousal) and evaluations (liking). As indicated by Figure2, these constituted the key measures of interest in modeling the mood-updating process.Obviously, the listening experiences just described represent only a

few variations in the ordering of exposure to music among the largenumber of possible sequences that could occur. These particular order-ings of emotionally toned consumption experiences were chosen in thebelief that they would produce different dynamic patterns of mood andevaluation over time. This, it was felt, would highlight the dynamicprogress of moods and evaluations as they unfolded according to themood-updating model.The illustrative application of themood-updatingmodel to the context

of the listening experiences just described is traced in greater detail bythe diagram shown in Figure 2. This diagram suggests that the firstevaluation at time t � 1 or Evaluationt�1 should depend on Moodt�0,on Predispositions, and on the emotional tone of the Original P&A Ex-perience (high or low). Evaluationt�1 should then modify Moodt�0 to cre-ate Moodt�2. Moodt�2 should then combine with Predispositions, withthe emotional tone of the Original P&A Experience, and with the O � SInteraction between the tones of the Original and Subsequent P&A Ex-periences (match or clash) to shape the second evaluation at timet � 3 or Evaluationt�3 (which, as explained momentarily, reflects thefirst half of the Subsequent P&A Experiences). The third evaluation



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at time t � 4 or Evaluationt�4 (which, as also explained momentarily,applies to the second half of the Subsequent P&A Experiences) shoulddepend on Evaluationt�3, on Predispositions, and on the sequential or-der of Subsequent P&A Experiences (increasing or decreasing to ahigher or lower level). Finally, Evaluationt � 4 should modify Moodt�2 tocreate Moodt�5. It follows that, due to the intervening role of sequentialevaluations, Moodt�5 may differ between increasing and decreasing or-ders of Subsequent P&A Experiences despite the fact that the overalllevels of those experiences, taken as a whole, are the same.To elaborate further on the reasons for distinguishing Evaluationt�3

and Evaluationt�4 in the present case, the essence of this illustration isthat it intentionally put listeners through a sequence of consumptionexperiences in which the emotional tones of the pieces they heard fol-lowed different orders that resulted in different interactions with theoriginal experience from which they started. Specifically, an increasingorder of subsequent experiences progressed from lower pleasure andarousal to higher pleasure and arousal, whereas a decreasing order pro-ceeded from higher to lower pleasure and arousal. Therefore, if the lis-tener began with an original experience low in pleasure and arousal,the increasing order provided a positive interaction or match betweenOriginal and Subsequent P&AExperiences; similarly, high original tonefollowed by a decreasing order also produced a positive interaction, thatis, a match between Original and Subsequent P&AExperiences. By con-trast, low followed by decreasing emotional tone or high followed byincreasing emotional tone produced negative interactions or clashes be-tween Original and Subsequent P&A Experiences. Further, the Sub-sequent P&A Experiences themselves unfolded over time and promptednot only the Evaluationt�3 but also the Evaluationt�4 (pertaining to thefirst and second halves of the Subsequent P&A Experiences, respec-tively). It is proposed that the relevant interactions—matches orclashes—should combine with Moodt�2, Predispositions, and the Orig-inal Experience to determine Evaluationt�3 (which is concerned withpeople’s responses to the first half of the Subsequent P&AExperiences).After that, the orders of the Subsequent P&A Experiences—increasingor decreasing in emotional tone to a higher or lower level—should com-bine with Evaluationt�3 plus Predispositions to shape Evaluationt�4. Inother words, after people have had an original consumption experience,they should initially evaluate subsequent experience according towhether it represents higher or lower emotional tone (the main effectof original experience) and whether it matches or clashes with the emo-tional tone of the original experience (the interaction effect); however,as the subsequent experience unfolds over time and increases or de-creases to a higher or lower level, they should adjust their initial eval-uation to reflect the direction in which their emotional experience ismoving (the main effect of subsequent experience). Thus, in what fol-lows, Evaluationt�3 and Evaluationt�4 are assumed to respond to the



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relevant aspects of interaction and order just described. Moreover,by virtue of a mediating role for these evaluations, the concludingMoodt�5 should differ between increasing and decreasing orders eventhough the music played in those differing sequences is the same.

Hypotheses

This illustrative application and the form of the mood-updating modelshown in Figure 2 and just described suggest the following workinghypotheses relevant to the musical illustration and indicated by labelson the arrows shown in Figure 2.

H1: The first hypothesis refers to the manner in which mood, predis-positions, and original consumption experience combine to shapethe initial evaluation.(a) Evaluationt�1 should depend positively onMoodt�0. (Here, for

ease of exposition, the term Moodt�0 refers to both Plea-suret�0 and Arousalt�0. These different aspects of Mood will,of course, be kept separate later when describing the empir-ical tests involved.)

(b) Evaluationt�1 should depend positively on Predispositions(that is, favorability toward the type of music used in thestudy).

(c) Evaluationt�1 should depend positively on the emotional tone(high versus low) of the Original P&A Experience.

The three parts of H1 reflect the expectation that people will like amusical listening experience better if they begin in a more elevatedmood, if the experience exposes them to a type of music toward whichthey hold favorable predispositions, and if it is higher as opposed tolower in emotional tone.

H2: Second, the model suggests that mood is updated to reflect theevaluation of intervening consumption experience.(a) Moodt�2 should depend positively on Moodt�0.(b) Controlling for Moodt�0, Moodt�2 should depend positively on

the initial Evaluationt�1.

This second set of subhypotheses related to H2 refers to the specificmood-updating mechanism and assumes that an intervening evaluationof consumption experience works to update earlier mood in a way thatshapes subsequent mood.

H3: Third, Hypothesis H3 pertains to the evaluation of the first partof the subsequent consumption experiences. Here, the aforemen-tioned effects of previous mood and predispositions should con-



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tinue to apply. Further—because, in the present design, a loworiginal tone is always followed by a higher subsequent tone anda high original tone is always followed by a lower subsequenttone—the main effect of Original P&A Experience on Evalua-tiont�3 should actually be negative by virtue of the subsequentcontrast involved. However, because the increasing (decreasing)subsequent consumption experience begins with a lower (higher)emotional tone, the match or clash between the original and sub-sequent experiences will depend on their interaction; in line withthe “sympathic” phenomenon described earlier (Holbrook & An-and, 1990), matches (clashes) should affect Evaluationt�3 posi-tively (negatively).(a) Evaluationt�3 should depend positively on Moodt�2.(b) Evaluationt�3 should depend positively on Predispositions.(c) Evaluationt�3 should depend negatively on the emotional

tone (high versus low) of the Original P&A Experience (dueto the contrast effect just described).

(d) Evaluationt�3 should depend positively on the O � S Inter-action (match versus clash) between the Original and Sub-sequent P&A Experiences.

Here, it is especially important to note why Evaluationt�3 should benegatively related to the emotional tone (high versus low) of the originalconsumption experience but positively related to the match betweenoriginal and subsequent experience. Specifically, those who begin withhigh pleasure and arousal should be disappointed by the lower (moremoderate) levels that follow; those who begin with low levels of pleasureand arousal should be favorably impressed by the upward shift (to moremoderate levels) that occurs subsequently. But, superimposed on thismain effect and consistent with the “sympathic” effect found elsewhere,a positive (negative) interaction—that is, a match (clash)—should en-hance (damage) the evaluation of subsequent experiences.

H4: Fourth, as the subsequent consumption experiences continue tounfold, the level of their emotional tone rises or falls over time.As a main effect, when controlling for predispositions and for theearlier evaluation (which refers to the first half of the set of sub-sequent experiences and assumes an inertia or stickiness in theevaluation process), the increasing (decreasing) order of subse-quent experiences should produce a positive (negative) main ef-fect on the final evaluation (which refers to the second half of theset of subsequent experiences).(a) Evaluationt�4 should depend positively on Evaluationt�3.(b) Evaluationt�4 should depend positively on Predispositions.(c) Evaluationt�4 should depend positively on increases in the

tone of the Subsequent P&A Experiences (to a higher levelover time).



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Here, H4 assumes some inertia between the evaluations at timet � 3 and time t � 4 but posits that Evaluationt�4 does adjust upwardor downward in response to increases or decreases in the tone of theSubsequent P&A Experiences.

H5: Fifth and finally, H5 assumes that the mood-updating mecha-nism will cause the ending mood to adjust to the evaluation thathas preceded it.(a) Moodt�5 should depend positively on Moodt�2.(b) Moodt�5 should depend positively on Evaluationt�4.

Thus, when controlling for intermediate mood (Moodt�2), differences inending mood (Moodt�5) should occur despite the fact that people havejust listened to the same six pieces of music—precisely because theyhave listened to these pieces in different increasing or decreasing orders(as reflected, presumably, in their different levels of Evaluationt�4).

METHOD

Summary of Overall Task

Meeting in small groups of three to ten people, with groups assignedrandomly to experimental treatments, subjects were told that their taskinvolved giving their reactions to a musical listening experience andwere cautioned not to communicate in any way with their neighbors.They then read a set of instructions for using an Affect Grid to assessPleasure and Arousal (described later). Immediately afterwards, theyused the Affect Grid to rate their beginning Moodt�0 at the start of theexperimental session (Pleasuret�0 and Arousalt�0). Next, they listenedto four recorded jazz performances—chosen on the basis of pretests tobe either high or low in both Pleasure and Arousal (the Original P&AExperience)—and rated their liking toward each of these pieces on fourscales used to provide a multiple-component representation of Evalua-tiont�1. Following this Original P&A Experience, high or low in pre-tested emotional tone, subjects again used the Affect Grid to indicatetheir Moodt�2 (Pleasuret�2 and Arousalt�2). They then encountered theSubsequent P&A Experiences composed of six new jazz performances—chosen by pretest to span the gap between high and low emotional toneand played in either the increasing or the decreasing order (i.e., ar-ranged in pretested emotional tone over time either from lower to higheror from higher to lower Pleasure and Arousal). Thus, as noted earlier,there were four between-subjects experimental conditions based on fourcombinations of Original and Subsequent P&A Experiences—high–in-creasing, high–decreasing, low–increasing, and low–decreasing. Sub-jects again rated their liking for each of the six pieces to provide three-component measures of Evaluationt�3 (based on the earlier three) and



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Evaluationt�4 (based on the later three). Finally, subjects again usedthe Affect Grid to indicate their Moodt�5 (Pleasuret�5 and Arousalt�5).The session concluded by collecting various control measures, includinga measure of Predispositions toward the type of music used in this par-ticular study (contemporary jazz). Details follow.

Measures of Mood

The present study made use of the Affect Grid developed by Russell etal. (1989)—according to the manner in which it was originally in-tended—as a measure of mood. Toward this end, at three stages of theexperiment previously described, subjects were asked to indicate theircurrent mood—that is, “how you feel right now”—by placing a check ina nine-by-nine grid of boxes labeled by eight verbal descriptors to indi-cate increasing levels of Pleasure from left to right and increasing de-grees of Arousal from bottom to top, as follows:

STRESS

DEPRESSION

UNPLEASANTFEELINGS

EXCITEMENT

RELAXATION

PLEASANTFEELINGS

SLEEPINESS

HIGHAROUSAL

This Affect Grid gives an indication of the subject’s Moodt�i—Plea-suret�i and Arousalt�i—at a moment in time (t � i). Hence, as admin-istered on three occasions during the overall listening task, it providedmeasures of Moodt�i—that is, Pleasuret�i and Arousalt�i for i � 0, 2,and 5.

Experimental Stimuli

The experimental stimuli used to prompt consumption experiences inthe present study came from a set of objects extensively pretested inearlier work on musical listening reported elsewhere. A subset of thesepreviously tested musical pieces was used for the present research be-cause highly reliable measures of emotional tone, as represented byPleasure and Arousal, were available for each piece. Specifically, as part



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Table 1. Jazz Performances Used to Manipulate Pleasure (P) andArousal (A)

Premeasure

Performer Piece Label P A

High-toned original P&Aexperience

Chet Baker “Love Nest” Mosaic 6.6 6.9Roy Eldridge “Gofor” Pablo Live 6.7 7.3Richie Cole “Flying Down to Rio” Concord Jazz 7.0 7.4David Benoit “Beach Trails” En Pointe 7.8 6.9

Low-toned original P&Aexperience

Harry Connick “Lonely Side” Columbia 4.0 3.1E. Bickert & R. McConnell “Imagination . . .” Innovation 4.6 2.0Eric Dolphy “Something Sweet . . .” Blue Note 3.4 4.1The Pugh-Taylor Project “Passion Flow . . .” dmp 3.0 2.3

Subsequent P&A experi-ences with increasing ordecreasing tones

Thelonious Monk “Rhythm-A-Ning” Riverside 6.3 6.9Keith Jarrett “The Song Is You” ECM 6.2 6.1Modern Jazz Quartet “The Golden Striker” Atlantic 6.2 5.6

Harry Connick “Hudson Bommer” Columbia 5.7 5.0Thelonious Monk “Light Blue” Riverside 4.8 4.4Roy Eldridge “I Surrender Dear” Pablo Live 4.3 4.4

of the earlier pretests, the Russell et al. Affect Grid (just described) wasused to obtain measures of emotional tone (Pleasure and Arousal) for32 recorded jazz performances. When compared among three indepen-dent assessments using three separate samples of subjects, these mea-sures of piece-specific Pleasure and Arousal proved to be highly reliableacross stimulus objects—with three-item coefficient alphas of � � 0.97for Pleasure and � � 0.99 for Arousal, respectively. Accordingly, for thepresent purposes, the pretest scores for these jazz recordings were usedto select: (1) four performances high in both Pleasure and Arousal; (2)four performances low in both Pleasure and Arousal; and (3) a progres-sion of six performancesmoving frommoderately low tomoderately highPleasure and Arousal. The specific jazz performances selected and theirpremeasures on the Affect Grid for Pleasure and Arousal appear in Ta-ble 1, where it can be seen that—on nine-point scales—the differencesbetween the high- and low-toned original experiences are quite large,while the progression of increasing (bottom-up) or decreasing (top-down)subsequent experiences spans the range in between.The pieces listed in Table 1 were used to create the two experimental



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Figure 3. Emotional tones of original P&A experiences, orders of subsequent P&Aexperiences, and timing of measures in four experimental conditions: Orders in whichsubsets were exposed (1-2-3), orders of stimuli within subsets (a-b-c-d), and measuresof evaluation (E1, E3, E4) or mood (M0, M2, M5).

manipulations of emotional tone in the Original P&A Experience (high/low) and the Subsequent P&A Experiences (increasing/decreasing). Asshown in Figure 3, these experimental treatments were combined in allfour possible ways to create a 2 � 2 between-subjects design based onfour experimental conditions: high–increasing, high–decreasing, low–increasing, and low–decreasing. As noted earlier, these correspond tointeraction effects regarded as a clash, a match, a match, and a clash,respectively. Immediately after listening to each piece, subjects rated itto provide measures of Evaluationt�i (i � 1, 3, and 4).



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Evaluations

Subjects rated their liking for each musical performance on the follow-ing 9-point numerical scale:

Extremely ExtremelyStrong 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 StrongDisliking Liking

Based on these liking ratings, the first four scores pertaining to the four-part high versus low Original P&A Experience (1a–1d in Figure 3) wereviewed as a multiple-component measure of Evaluationt�1 (E1 in Figure3). The next three scores from the increasing versus decreasing Subse-quent P&A Experiences (2a–2c in Figure 3) were regarded as a three-component index of Evaluationt�3 (E3 in Figure 3). The final three scoresfrom the increasing versus decreasing Subsequent P&A Experiences(3a—3c in Figure 3) were taken as a three-component measure of Ev-aluationt�4 (E4 in Figure 3).In other words, Evaluationt�1 represents degree of liking for the orig-

inal four jazz performances (high or low in Pleasure and Arousal). Ev-aluationt�3 indicates degree of liking for the initial subsequent experi-ences after the shift from a high or low P&A tone to a more moderatelevel slightly above the low P&A tone in the increasing P&A conditionor slightly below the high P&A tone in the decreasing P&A condition.Evaluationt�4 reflects how liking responds to a continuing shift in Plea-sure and Arousal—upwards in the Subsequent P&A Experiences withincreasing P&A tone or downwards in the Subsequent P&AExperienceswith decreasing P&A tone. However, as clearly shown in Figure 3, themusic heard was the same in both the increasing and decreasing Sub-sequent P&A Experiences and differed only in its order of exposure.

Experimental Conditions

To summarize, four conditions were created by the two experimentalmanipulations, with resulting predictions of main and interaction ef-fects. Initially, an Original P&A Experience either high or low in P&Atone was expected to shape Evaluationt�1 and thereby to affectMoodt�2. Eventually, Subsequent P&A Experiences either increasing ordecreasing in P&A tone were expected to influence Evaluationt�1 andthereby to determine Moodt�5. Meanwhile, the interaction betweenthese two matching or clashing treatments was expected to exert anintervening effect on Evaluationt�3.Notice that the set of musical performances associated with the first

three increasing versus decreasing Subsequent P&A Experiences (2a–2c in Figure 3) always involved a move toward a more moderate levelof Pleasure and Arousal. However, in some cases this movement was



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downward (when preceded by a high-toned Original P&A Experience)and in some cases upward (when preceded by a low-toned Original P&AExperience). Hence, by virtue of this downward-versus-upward con-trast, one would expect a high-versus-low Original P&A Experience toexert a negative-versus-positive main effect on Evaluationt�3. Further,in some cases the Subsequent P&A Experiences began with a closematch in emotional tone to the Original P&A Experience and thenshifted away (high–decreasing or low–increasing), whereas in othercases they began with a clash in emotional tone and then moved backtoward the Original P&A Experience (high-increasing or low-decreas-ing). One would expect this match-versus-clash in emotional tone toexert an incremental positive-versus-negative interaction effect on Ev-aluationt�3. Later, however, the increasing-versus-decreasing Subse-quent P&A Experiences should exert a positive-versus-negative maineffect on Evaluationt�4 and should thereby produce differences in endingMoodt�5 even though all subjects had heard the same music in the Sub-sequent P&A Experiences (but in different orders). All this is reflectedin the detailed hypotheses shown in Figure 2 and discussed earlier un-der the headings H1–H5.In some ways, the hypotheses concerning the roles of match and order

are the two most interesting of those just elaborated. The first impliesa complex “sympathic” phenomenon in which a current evaluation de-pends not only on the emotional tone of the current listening experiencebut also on that of the experience preceding it. The second implies thatmood may reflect the sequential order as well as the overall emotionaltone of a prolonged listening experience. Note, however, that both thesehypotheses depend on a consideration of the dynamic process whereinevaluations and moods unfold over time in something like the mannerrepresented by the mood-updating model.

Background Measures, Predispositions, and Debriefing

After completing the listening task, subjects answered a series of ques-tions intended to provide background information as checks on the com-parability of subjects in the various experimental conditions, to assesstheir predispositions toward the type of music used in the study (con-temporary jazz), and to check for the presence of any potential demandeffects.Background questions asked if respondents could name any of the

artists heard (yes/no); if they had any formal training in music (yes/no);how many hours per day they listened to music (open ended); how theyfelt about music in general (on a 7-point liking scale); how they re-sponded to the listening task (on 7-point scales of sad vs happy, arousedvs calm, comfortable vs uncomfortable, uneasy vs contented, and peace-ful vs angry); gender (male/female); and age (open ended).



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Predispositions were assessed by the following three items, includedin the middle of the concluding set of questions:

How do you feel about jazz music?

Dislike a lot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Like a lot

The music in the study resembles the music I normally listen to.

Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Agree

The pieces in the study sounded very familiar to me.

Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Agree

For purposes of controlling for differences among subjects in their ten-dency to like or dislike the type of contemporary jazz used in the pres-ent study, these three items were combined to form a multiple-indica-tor measure of Predispositions.Finally, subjects were asked to suggest their open-ended speculations

on the purpose of the study. Many replied that the study investigatedtheir feelings toward music or their reactions to jazz—essentially whatthey had been told at the start of the listening task—but none revealedany understanding of the more specific purpose of the study as an ex-amination of the mood-updating model discussed earlier.

Subjects

The listening-and-rating task just described was completed by 67 un-dergraduate students at a large university on the East Coast of theUnited States. These students received credit toward a course require-ment for participating in the study. They performed the task in 12 smallgroups ranging in size from 3 to 10 subjects per group (mean � 5.6),with groups assigned at random to the various experimental conditionsspecified previously, strongly cautioned not to communicate in any waywith one another while performing the listening-and-rating task, andclosely supervised to ensure that they followed these instructions. Sam-ple sizes for the four experimental conditions were as follows: high–increasing, 16; high–decreasing, 17; low–increasing, 19; low–decreas-ing, 15.

Model Specification and Testing

In general, the hypothesized relationships shown in Figure 2 weretested by means of a two-step structural equations approach via EQS(Bentler, 1989) to analyze the measurement-related and path-analyticaspects of the model separately (Anderson & Gerbing, 1982; Gerbing &Anderson, 1988). That is, a confirmatory factor analysis first assessedthe unidimensionality and reliability of the multiple-indicator measure



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(Predispositions) and the multiple-components constructs (Evalua-tiont�i, i � 1, 3, and 4). Then a full-information maximum-likelihoodestimation assessed the overall fit of the covariance data to the hypoth-esized mood-updating structure proposed earlier in Figure 2.However, the actual pattern of relationships tested was somewhat

more complicated than that depicted in Figure 2 for threemajor reasons.First, though omitted from Figure 2 to avoid clutter and confusion, eachassessment of Mood represented both Pleasure and Arousal so that ef-fects for these two aspects of Mood required separate estimation. Sec-ond, the mood-updating model assumes that Evaluation at each stageintervenes between Experience and updated Mood, thereby requiringtests for additional direct effects of Experience on Mood when control-ling for Evaluation as a mediator (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Third, thepossibility exists that Predispositions also affect Moods directly in waysthat need to be controlled. The second and third of these issues wereexamined by means of a preliminary set of OLS multiple regressionanalyses in order to fine-tune the more comprehensive model that re-quired estimation via EQS. (For a comparable regression-basedanalysisof a behavior-updating as opposed to a mood-updating model, see Ba-gozzi et al., 1992.)In sum, the relationships represented by Figure 2 and articulated by

hypotheses H1–H5 were tested by means of structural equations mod-eling via EQS with high/low Original P&A Experience coded �1/�1;increasing/decreasing Subsequent P&A Experiences coded �1/�1; andthe Original� Subsequent interaction coded�1/�1 to representmatch-ing/clashing conditions. Notice that the logic of this coding scheme re-quires reversing the sign of the multiplicative O � S term; for example,in the case of the high–increasing condition, O � �1, S � �1, andO � S � �1, but the latter interaction is recoded as �1 to represent aclash. Overall, the relevant specifications for Consequent Variables �f(Antecedent Variables) were as follows [where brackets indicate effectsnot assumed to occur but included for statistical completeness]:

H1: Evaluationt�1 � f(Pleasuret�0, Arousalt�0, Predispositions,Original P&A Experience)

H2: Pleasuret�2 � f(Pleasuret�0, [Arousalt�0], Evaluationt�1)Arousalt�2 � f([Pleasuret�0], Arousalt�0, Evaluationt�1)

H3: Evaluationt�3 � f(Pleasuret�2, Arousalt�2, Predispositions,Original P&A Experience; [Subsequent P&A Experiences], Orig-inal � Subsequent Interaction)

H4: Evaluationt�4 � f(Evaluationt�3, Predispositions, [Original P&AExperience], Subsequent P&A Experiences, [Original � Subse-quent Interaction])

H5: Pleasuret�5 � f(Pleasuret�2, [Arousalt�2], Evaluationt�4)Arousalt�5 � f([Pleasuret�2], Arousalt�2, Evaluationt�4)



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As previously mentioned, these relationships were expanded by includ-ing additional terms to represent the experimental treatments (OriginalP&A Experience, Subsequent P&A Experiences, the Original � Sub-sequent Interaction) and/or Predispositions where appropriate (e.g., inthe cases of H2 andH5, where there was a need to check for direct effectsof the emotional tones of the experiences above and beyond the indirecteffects mediated by evaluations of liking for the music). Hence, resultswill be reported in a manner that includes these additional variableswhere needed to provide a reliable indication of the relationships in-volved.

RESULTS

Comparability of Experimental Conditions on BackgroundVariables, Predispositions, and Beginning Mood

As a check on the comparability of subjects in the four experimentalconditions, OLS regressions were run in which Original P&A Experi-ence, Subsequent P&A Experiences, and the Original � SubsequentInteraction were used to explain familiarity with any of the artistsheard; formal training in music; hours per day spent listening to music;feelings about music in general; responses to the listening task on 7-point scales of sad versus happy, aroused versus calm, comfortable ver-sus uncomfortable, uneasy versus contented, and peaceful versus angry;gender; age; predispositions (both a multi-item index and each itemconsidered separately); andMoodt�0 (Pleasuret�0 and Arousalt�0). Theseanalyses showed no significant differences among experimental condi-tions in any of the variables just listed. This result establishes that, asone would hope, the experimental treatment groups were closely com-parable with respect to the background variables, predispositions, andbeginning moods investigated here. This helps to rule out competingexplanations for the results to be reported in what follows.

Unidimensionality and Reliability

Confirmatory factor analysis based on four constructs with either threeindicators (Predispositions), four component items (Evaluationt�1), orthree component items (Evaluationt�i, i � 3, 4) showed generally sat-isfactory unidimensionality and reliability. Though the overall chi-square suggested rejecting the four-factor model (chi-square � 84.2,df � 59, p � .02), the various measures of overall fit appear satisfactoryin other respects. Thus, the average standardized off-diagonal residualis 0.04; the Bentler–Bonett Nonnormed Fit Index is 0.94; and the Com-parative Fit Index is 0.96. Further, construct reliabilities (Joreskog,1971) and average variance extracted (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) appear



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acceptable in all cases: Predispositions—reliability � 0.82/average var-iance extracted � 0.61; Evaluationt�1—0.81/0.52; Evaluationt�3—0.88/0.70; Evaluationt�4—0.91/0.77. Moreover, z values for all items exceed4.0, with all but one larger than 5.5; all factor loadings are thereforestatistically significant at any reasonable alpha level. In short, theseresults support good internal consistency or convergent validity for themultiple-item measures. On the issue of discriminant validity, takentogether, they also appear adequate on the whole. Specifically, on thecriterion proposed by Fornell and Larcker (1981), average variance ex-tracted (within constructs) is about the same as average shared variance(between constructs) —namely, 0.650 and 0.649, respectively. At a finerlevel of detail—as can be seen by comparing the average variances ex-tracted (P � 0.61, E1 � 0.52, E3 � 0.70, E4 � 0.77, as given earlier) withthe relevant shared variances (P,E1 � 0.68; P,E3 � 0.70; P,E4 � 0.65;E1,E3 � 0.52; E1,E4 � 0.50; E3,E4 � 0.84) —some pairs pass the ratherstringent test for discriminant validity (E1,E3; E1,E4); others come close(P,E3; P,E4); but others fall somewhat short (P,E1; E3,E4). On balance,this seems about the best one could reasonably expect in the context ofa model in which the links between sequential stages are expected tobe–and, indeed, are–quite strong.

Structural Equations Model

As a preliminary consideration, the use of a structural-equations ap-proach permitted an assessment of the covariance between Pleasureand Arousal. Specifically, among the three pairs of Pleasure andArousalmeasures, only the first pair (Pleasuret�0 and Arousalt�0) were related:rt�0 � �0.45 (t65 � �4.03, p � .0001). Because the experimental treat-ments tended to manipulate Pleasure and Arousal in the same direc-tions, this initial negative correlation (which describes subjects’ moodswhen first beginning the experimental session) disappeared at laterstages of the mood-updating process: rt�2 � �0.01 (ns) and rt�5 � �0.04(ns). Hence, only the first of these covariances was included in the struc-tural equations model.In testing the full-information model, the overall EQS analysis

produced a chi-square tending to reject the underlying model (chi-square � 258.9, df � 184, p � .001). However, this tendency towardrejection resulted in part from the simultaneous estimation of themeas-urement and structural models. When the four multiple-itemmeasureswere treated as simple summative indices, the tendency to reject thestructural model fell to only marginal significance (chi-square � 57.2,df � 44, p � .09). Moreover, for the full-information (measurement andstructural) version, the various measures of overall model fit again ap-pear satisfactory in other respects. Thus, the average standardized off-diagonal residual is 0.06; the Bentler–Bonett Nonnormed Fit Index is0.88; and the Comparative Fit Index is 0.91. Most important, the indi-



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vidual structural parameters support the mood-updating model ratherconvincingly. Specifically, results for the EQS analysis used to test themood-updating model shown in Figure 2 appear in Panels H1 to H5 ofTable 2.First, as hypothesized and as shown in Panel H1 of Table 2, Eval-

uationt�1 reflects a highly significant positive contribution from Predis-positions [H1(b), z � 6.5, p � .00001] and fromOriginal P&AExperience[H1(c), z � 3.7, p � .0001). Here, contrary to expectations,Moodt�0 (Plea-suret�0 and Arousalt�0) did not exert significant effects [H1(a),z � 0.3, ns; z � �1.0, ns), presumably because the impact of the exper-imental treatment was strong enough to overwhelm that of randomfluc-tuations in the initial mood states.Second, as shown in Panel H2 of Table 2 and as also predicted, Plea-

suret�2 was explained in part by themarginally significant effect of Plea-suret�0 [H2(a), z � 1.3, p � .09] updated by Evaluationt�1 [H2(b), z �4.2, p � .00001). Here, a preliminary OLS regression analysis showedthat Evaluationt�1 may be regarded as mediating the relationship be-tween Original P&A Experience and Pleasuret�2 in the sense that, with-out the inclusion of Evaluationt�1, Original P&AExperience contributessignificantly to the explanation of Pleasuret�2 (t � 2.2, p � .02), but thiseffect drops from significance (t � 0.7, ns) when Evalua-tiont�1 is added to the equation (Baron & Kenny, 1986).With the focus still on Panel H2 in Table 2, similar results appear

concerning the positive contribution of Arousalt�0 (z � 3.1, p � .001)updated by Evaluationt�1 (z � 2.1, p � .02) in explaining Arousalt�2—except that Original P&A Experience (z � 4.2, p � .00001) does not dropfrom significance but continues to exert an additional direct effect onArousalt�2 above and beyond the partially mediating role of Evalua-tiont�1. This indicates that Evaluationt�1 does not fully mediate the ef-fect of Original P&A Experience on Arousalt�2 but that an additionaldirect impact of Original P&A Experience remains.Third, Panel H3 in Table 2 shows that, as expected, the explanation

of Evaluationt�3 depends on significant contributions from Arousalt�2

[H3(a), z � 1.5, p � 0.06], from Predispositions [H3(b), z � 6.5, p �.00001], from Original P&A Experience in the anticipated negative di-rection [H3(c), z � �3.99, p � .00003], and from the Original � Sub-sequent P&A Experiences Interaction in the anticipated positive direc-tion associated with a match as opposed to a clash [H3(d), z � 2.0, p �.02, where the multiplicative O � S Interaction is reverse coded in sucha way that match/clash is represented by a �1/�1 dummy variable).Here, contrary to expectations [H3(a)], no effect of Pleasuret�2 appeared(z � 1.1, ns). Moreover, the effect of Subsequent P&AExperiences failedto reach statistical significance (z � �0.6, ns)—indicating, as expected,that the level of the Subsequent P&AExperiences is less important thantheir interaction (match or clash) with the Original P&A Experience.Fourth, in Panel H4 of Table 2, Evaluationt�4 is explained by signif-



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Table 2. Results for Structural-Equation Estimation of the Mood-UpdatingModel via EQS

Dependent Independent Param. Path z pVariable Variables Estimate Coefficient Statistic Levela

H1. Evaluationt�1 Original P&A Experience 0.506 0.325 3.654 0.0001Pleasuret�0 0.024 0.029 0.307 nsArousalt�0 �0.083 �0.094 �1.003 nsPredispositions 0.956 0.819 6.549 0.00001

H2. Pleasuret�2 Evaluationt�1 0.566 0.504 4.185 0.00001Pleasuret�0 0.152 0.162 1.344 0.09Arousalt�0 0.115 0.116 0.955 ns

Arousalt�2 Original P&A Experience 0.736 0.434 4.226 0.00001Evaluationt�1 0.249 0.229 2.068 0.02Pleasuret�0 0.023 0.025 0.234 nsArousalt�0 0.322 0.336 3.101 0.001

H3. Evaluationt�3 Original P&A Experience �0.545 �0.362 �3.994 0.00003Subsequent P&AExperiences

�0.060 �0.040 �0.552 ns

O � S Interactive[reversed]b

0.220 0.146 2.004 0.02

Pleasuret�2 0.080 0.093 1.108 nsArousalt�2 0.119 0.134 1.528 0.06Predispositions 0.912 0.807 6.541 0.00001

H4. Evaluationt�4 Original P&A Experience �0.190 �0.096 �0.714 nsSubsequent P&AExperiences

0.364 0.184 3.049 0.001

O � S Interaction[reversed]b

�0.238 �0.120 �1.599 ns

Evaluationt�3 1.065 0.812 2.451 0.007Pleasuret�2 0.101 0.089 1.264 0.10Arousalt�2 0.218 0.187 2.298 0.01Predispositions 0.091 0.061 0.216 ns

H5. Pleasuret�5 Evaluationt�4 0.438 0.442 3.841 0.00006Pleasuret�2 0.353 0.316 2.922 0.002Arousalt�2 �0.034 �0.029 �0.294 ns

Arousalt�5 Evaluationt�4 0.210 0.260 1.737 0.04Original P&A Experience �0.407 �0.254 �1.760 0.04Subsequent P&AExperiences

0.161 0.100 0.930 ns

O � S Interaction[reversed]b

0.267 0.167 1.577 0.06

Pleasuret�2 �0.203 �0.221 �1.740 0.08Arousalt�2 0.322 0.341 2.443 0.007

aOne-tailed/two-tailed p-levels are reported where the directions of effects were/were not predicted in ad-vance, as shown by Figure 2.

bNote that the multiplicative O � S interaction was reverse coded in such a way that �1/�1 represents amatch/clash between the Original and Subsequent P&A Experiences.



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icant contributions in the expected direction from Evaluationt�3 [H4(a),z � 2.5, p � .007] but not from Predispositions [H4(b), z � 0.2, ns); withadditional significant but not hypothesized contributions in the logicallycorrect directions from Pleasuret�2 (z � 1.3, p � .10) and Arousalt�2

(z � 2.3, p � 0.01); and—most important, as predicted—with a highlysignificant positive effect of Subsequent P&A Experiences [H4(c), z �3.0, p � .001). Here, the nonhypothesized but nondisappearing effectsof Pleasuret�2 and Arousalt�2 indicate that additional direct effects ofthese variables on Evaluationt�4 occur above and beyond thosemediatedby the intervening role of Evaluationt�3.Fifth, as shown in Panel H5, Pleasuret�5 is explained by the expected

significant positive contribution from Pleasuret�2 [H5(a), z � 2.9, p �.002) as updated by Evaluationt�4 [H5(b), z � 3.8, p � .00006). Thisfinding continues to support the mood-updating model. However, as ex-plored by preliminary OLS analyses, additional main effects of the ex-perimental treatments (beyond their indirect effects via the mediatingrole of Evaluationt�4) did not appear. In particular, contrary to expec-tations, it could not be said that Pleasuret�5 varied as a result of theincreasing versus decreasing order of presenting the samemusical stim-uli (t � �0.9, ns).As suggested by exploratory OLS analyses and as also shown in Panel

H5 of Table 2, it was necessary to control for the marginally significanteffects of the experimental treatments (Original P&A Experience, Sub-sequent P&A Experiences, and the O � S Interaction) in order to clarifythe determinants of Arousalt�5. With these controls, in accord with themood-updating framework, the explanation of Arousalt�5 showed theexpected significant contribution from Arousalt�2 [H5(a), z � 2.4, p �.007]—plus an unexpected but only marginally significant contributionof Pleasuret�2 (z � �1.7, p � .08)—as updated by the anticipated sig-nificantly positive effect of Evaluationt�4 [H5(b), z � 1.7, p � .04). Thistime, preliminary OLS regressions did show the anticipated positiveeffect of increasing-versus-decreasing Subsequent P&A Experience onthe ending Arousalt�5 (t � 1.3, p � .09). This means that the same mu-sical stimuli exerted different impacts on Arousalt�5 when presented indifferent orders and that this effect was mediated by the interveningEvaluationt�4.

DISCUSSION

Summary

The present study has described an illustrative application of a mood-updating model that appears to provide a plausible account of the pro-cess by which moods are adjusted as continuously unfolding reactionsto consumption experiences that occur over time. Viewed as testing a



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set of working hypotheses (Figure 2), the findings appear to offer generalsupport for this proposed mood-updating framework (Table 2).In the most general terms, as suggested initially (Figure 1), it appears

that a series of phases may occur in which a beginning mood state com-bines with predispositions and emotionally toned consumption experi-ences to prompt evaluations that, in turn, work to update the beginningmood to produce a new mood state. It further appears that this mood-updating pattern then repeats itself with variations caused by changesin the emotional tone of the ongoing consumption experiences. In effect,this representation thereby captures a continuous affective develop-ment of consumption-based moods over time.The illustrative application of this mood-updating model used jazz

performances to provide the basic emotionally toned consumption ex-periences and manipulated these performances in such a way that theyvaried systematically in terms of their ability to evoke pleasure andarousal (as measured in pretests). Specifically, in the present design, anoriginal consumption experience composed of four performances high orlow in P&A tone was followed by subsequent consumption experiencesbased on six performances that increased or decreased in P&A tone. Theresulting four experimental conditions—high–increasing, high–de-creasing, low–increasing, and low-decreasing—allowed predictions ofevaluations in ways that were generally supported by the findings. Fur-ther, these evaluations worked to update preceding moods to form sub-sequent moods in the manner expected.When tested by structural equation modeling, the overall fit of the

mood-updating framework appeared satisfactory. Moreover, the ante-cedent variables generally exerted significant effects in the directionspredicted by the mood-updating linkages shown in Figure 2. Thus, ashypothesized, Predispositions positively influenced Evaluationt�1

(p � .00001) and Evaluationt�3 (p � .00001) [though not Evalua-tiont�4 (ns)]. Further, as expected, Original P&A Experience with thefirst four musical performances contributed positively to Evaluationt�1

(p � .0001), but—because the next six performances moved to a moremoderate level of pleasure and arousal—exerted a negative effect onEvaluationt�3 (p � .00003) in such a way that moving from high (low)to more moderate pleasure and arousal levels tended to decrease (in-crease) liking for the next three performances. However, as further hy-pothesized according to the “sympathic” phenomenon, Evaluationt�3

also responded to the Original � Subsequent Interaction between thepleasure and arousal levels of the first four and next three performancesin such a way that closer matches produced greater liking (p � 0.02).Then the pattern of Subsequent P&A Experiences in the last three per-formances (increasing/decreasing to a higher/lower level of emotionaltone) exerted the expected positive effect on Evaluationt�4 (p � 0.001).Finally, the hypothesized mood-updating phenomenon appeared quitereliably in the form of positive links from Pleasuret�0 to Pleasuret�2



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(p � 0.09) as updated by Evaluationt�1 (p � .00001); from Arousalt�0

to Arousalt�2 (p � .001) as updated by Evaluationt�1 (p � .02); fromPleasuret�2 to Pleasuret�5 (p � .002) as updated by Evaluationt�4

(p � .00006); and from Arousalt�2 to Arousalt�5 (p � .007) as updatedby Evaluationt�4 (p � .04). In short, it appears that the pattern of re-lationships proposed by the illustrative application outlined in Figure 2receives strong, significant, and consistent support from the findings ofthe present study.

Limitations and Future Research

Despite this generally encouraging support for the mood-updatingmodel, various potential limitations suggest possible avenues for futureresearch. For example, as is so often the case in experimental studiesof consumer behavior, questions remain concerning whether compara-ble results would be obtained with different product stimuli (e.g., watch-ing television or playing games versus listening to music), with a dif-ferent subject population (e.g., professionals or senior citizens versuscollege students), with different measures of mood (e.g., a full batteryof mood ratings for such categories as contentment, anger, boredom, etc.versus the Affect Grid), or with different assessments of affect (e.g., oneof the multiple-category emotion profiles versus the single-item likingscale used here). The authors believe that—as an illustrative applica-tion—the present subjects, stimuli, grid, and evaluation scale makesense. After all, music is noted for its power to create a mood (Bruner,1990; Goldstein, 1980; Rosenfeld, 1985); college students are probablyjust as susceptible to mood changes as anyone else; the Affect-Gridmeasurement approach has received strong support for reliability andvalidity in previous research (Russell et al., 1989); and liking is certainlyone of the most frequently measured aspects of consumers’ affective re-sponses (Cohen & Areni, 1991). Nonetheless, greater faith in the mood-updating model will be justified if and when it has been supported byfurther research using diverse products, people, measures, and meth-ods.Another limitation stems from the type of mood-related consumption

phenomenon examined here. Specifically, as previously emphasized, thepresent study has investigated how mood responds to consumption ex-periences that unfold over time when these are controlled by others.Such situations would occur typically when listening to the radio (with-out changing channels), when watching television programs (withoutzapping by means of the remote control), when seeing a movie (in atheater), or when viewing a sports event (at the stadium or arena). How-ever, additional questions arise concerning the nature of what happenswhen consumers purposely manipulate consumption experiences in away that manages their own moods. Examples would include dialingfrom station to station, channel surfing, or programming one’s CD ma-



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chine to play only the tunes that one wants to hear in the desired se-quence. Here, one can envision a very complex mood-updating processwherein moods and product selections unfold in dynamic mutual inter-dependency over time. These complexities clearly deserve attention infuture research.Other possible limitations could stem from conceivable problemswith

the experimental design used here. For example, there is always thepotential danger that subjects might intuit the researchers’ hypothesesand might answer accordingly or that, despite random assignment, ex-perimental treatment groups might have differed on various back-ground variables (familiarity, training, listening habits, feelings aboutmusic in general, emotional responses to the listening task, gender,age), on predispositions toward the type of music used in the study (con-temporary jazz), or on beginning moods (pleasure and arousal). How-ever, in debriefings, subjects showed no understanding of the hypothe-ses under investigation (beyond the obvious fact that they hadsomething to do with responses tomusic). Further, the subjects assignedto the various experimental treatments differed on none of the back-ground variables, predispositions, or initial moods just mentioned.Hence, it seems safe to conclude that the ever-present danger of biasesdue to demand effects or of alternative explanations due to other con-founds did not threaten the validity of the present study. Nevertheless,again, greater confidence in the present approach must await furtherempirical work using different materials and methods to provide addi-tional support for the relevant findings on mood updating.

CONCLUSION

The main thrust of the present research concerns the desirability andfeasibility of studying the dynamic nature of moods as they unfold overtime. The specific illustration described here is just one of an inherentlyinfinite number of scenarios that could be examined in this light. Hence,the point is not to suggest that all moods in all consumption experiencesfollow the particular sequence of development demonstrated in thisstudy for the case of a particular type of music-listening experience.Rather, the point is to convince the reader that the dynamic mood-up-dating process exists, that it unfolds in a highly complex way over time,and that this temporal progression can in principle be investigated bymeans of methods resembling those illustrated by the example devel-oped here.Toward this end, it appears that the present illustrative application

has corroborated a set of relationships predicted by a plausible mood-updating model as the outcome of evaluative reactions to emotionallytoned consumption experiences that unfold from one moment to thenext. As a final anecdotal example, the reader might have noticed the



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same sort of mood-updating phenomenon occurring while reading thisarticle. For example, if the reader began in a state of low pleasure andlow arousal, the article might have offered an emotional experience wellenough liked to elevate the reader’s mood. Conversely, if the reader felteuphoric at the beginning, experience with the articlemight havemovedthe prevailing degrees of pleasure and arousal to a lower level. Obvi-ously, the former case would more closely resemble the outcome forwhich the authors might wish. But either event would illustrate thedynamic model of the mood-updating process in consumer behavior.

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The authors thank Wynd Harris, Jackie Kacen, James Kellaris, and Bob Kentfor their helpful comments on an earlier draft. They also gratefully acknowl-edge support by the faculty research funds at their respective schools.

Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to: Morris B. Holbrook,504 Uris Hall, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, New York,NY 10027 ([email protected]).

illustrating a dynamic model of the mood-updating process in consumer behavior

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