Moodcongruent

Mood-congruent describes cognitive and affective processes that are biased toward information and experiences matching an individual’s current mood. The term is used in psychology to explain how mood states influence perception, memory, judgment, and interpretation in ways that align with the emotional valence of the mood.

In memory, mood-congruent memory bias occurs when people more readily recall information that matches their mood. For example, a person in a sad mood may more easily retrieve negative memories or attend to negative material, while a positive mood can enhance recall of positive information. Encoding can also be influenced, with mood at the time of encoding interacting with the material to affect later retrieval. Retrieval cues that align with current mood can further bias which memories come to mind.

In judgment and decision making, mood-congruent processing can bias evaluations and interpretations. Positive mood tends to promote favorable judgments and broader, more heuristic thinking, whereas negative mood can lead to more cautious or negative interpretations of ambiguous information.

Clinical relevance and limitations: mood-congruent processing is discussed in relation to mood disorders, where a persistent negative mood can bias cognition toward negative content and contribute to symptom maintenance. Effects are moderated by context, task, individual differences, and content; not all studies observe strong or uniform mood-congruence. Related concepts include mood-state dependent memory, which refers to memory performance depending on mood during encoding and retrieval rather than the content’s valence alone.

See also: mood-congruent memory, mood-congruent judgment, affective bias.