74 Saying is experiencing: Affective consequences of complaining and afirmation Bogdan Wojciszke*,** Wiesław Baryła* Aleksandra Szymków-Sudziarska* Michał Parzuchowski* Katarzyna Kowalczyk* Original Papers In four experiments mood was measured before and after complaining or afirmation. Participants complained or afirmed either themselves or listened to such communications of another person. Mood decreased after complaining and increased after afirmation – a “saying is experiencing” (SIE) effect. This effect was found also in the cognitive load condition suggesting that automatic mood contagion underlies the SIE effect rather than mechanisms based on self-perception or self-awareness. Appropriateness of a topic for complaining appeared a boundary condition of the SIE effect: When a topic was considered by participants the most appropriate for complaining, the act of showing dissatisfaction with the topic led to mood improvement. Keywords: Afirmation, Complaining, Mood, Saying is experiencing effect Polish Psychological Bulletin 2009, vol. 40 (2), 74-84 DOI - 10.2478/s10059-009-0008-0 * Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sopot Campus, Poland ** email: bogdan.wojciszke@swps.edu.pl Saying is Experiencing: Affective Consequences of Complaining and Afirmation Complaining is more frequently heard than studied. Using a diary method with a sample of American students, Alicke et al. (1992) found the average number of complaints to exceed four per day per participant of their study. In other cultures complaining may be even more frequent. A recent national survey conducted in Poland revealed that 40.5% of that population believes Poles complain very often and only less than one percent believes they do it never or rarely (Wojciszke, Szymków-Sudziarska & Baryła, 2008). At least in some contexts complaining may be also important – Kelley (1979) found that it ranked third in a list of 15 problems faced by romantic couples. Still, outside speciic areas of consumer complaints (e.g. East, 2000) and hypochondria (e.g. Smith, Snyder & Perkins, 1983) only a few empirical studies on complaining have been published (Alicke et al., 1992; Kaiser & Miller, 2001; Kowalski & Cantrell, 2002). Despite a comprehensive theoretical model of antecedents, functions and consequences of complaining developed by Kowalski (1996), empirical research on this topic remains scarce. The present work attempts to ill this gap in knowledge by presenting a line of four studies on affective consequences of complaining and afirmation. Complaining is deined as expressing dissatisfaction independently of whether it is actually experienced or not (Kowalski, 1996). Complaining is, then, an affect- expressive behavior, so it is logical to assume that it can result in direct changes of affective states. However, it is not clear whether complaining leads to positive or negative changes in affective states. Theoretical arguments may be developed for both improvement and deterioration of affective states after complaining. Alicke et al. (1992) and Kowalski (1996, 2003) believe in cathartic function of complaining, that the expression of dissatisfaction leads to venting negative emotions, provides an emotional release from frustration and “gets it off one’s chest”. This assertion is based on what participants believe to be the reason of their own complaining – the desire to vent frustration was the most frequently cited reason of complaining by Alicke et al.’s participants of the diary study (and by Wojciszke et al.’s respondents of a national sample). Nevertheless, a subjective reason of a behavioral act is evidently different from an objective effect of the act, and the former cannot be considered a proof of the latter.