1124 The Happy Spotlight: Positive Mood and Selective Attention to Rewarding Information Maya Tamir Boston College Michael D. Robinson North Dakota State University & Slovic, 2006). By this reasoning, positive mood states should facilitate a selective focus on desirable features of the environment, and such selectivity effects, in turn, could potentially explain why it is that positive mood states facilitate the attainment of positive outcomes. Although many mood-cognition frameworks invoke basic cognitive processes related to attention, encoding, and automatic spreading activation, it is striking that the data in support of such frameworks typically relate to relatively “downstream” correlates such as judg- ments or behavior (for a review, see Bower & Forgas, 2000). The latter outcomes are complex, and there are theoretical disputes concerning how to interpret them from a cognitive perspective (for a review, see Schwarz & Clore, 1996). Thus, we follow Niedenthal and Halberstadt (2000) in focusing on early cognitive effects of mood states, which should be useful in understanding why mood states have the downstream effects that they do. Specifically, we examine the possibility that positive mood states bias attention toward rewarding stimuli in selective attention tasks. This hypothesis is discussed in light of prior theory and data involving social cognition, mood states, and selective attention, as reviewed below. Authors’ Note: Support is acknowledged from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH 068241) to Michael Robinson and from Positive Psychology Pod Grant Funding to Maya Tamir and Michael Robinson. Correspondence concerning this article can be directed to Maya Tamir, Psychology Department, Boston College, 140 Common- wealth Ave., Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. Internet correspondence can be directed to the first author at tamirm@bc.edu. PSPB, Vol. 33 No. 8, August 2007 1124-1136 DOI: 10.1177/0146167207301030 © 2007 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. Positive mood states are thought to sensitize individuals to rewards in their environment, presumably in the service of approach-related decision making and behav- ior. From a selective attention standpoint, such mood- related effects should be associated with selective attention biases favoring rewarding stimuli. No prior results along these lines have been reported. Therefore, the authors conducted a systematic program of research designed to document such relations. Study 1 found that daily positive mood states were associated with atten- tion to reward words in a spatial probe task. Studies 2- 5 replicated this association in the context of mood manipulations. The latter studies also show that the effect generalizes across different mood manipulation procedures, is specific to positive mood states, and is particularly apparent in relation to rewarding (vs. non- rewarding) positive stimuli. The results extend our knowledge of mood-cognition relations and have important implications for understanding the social cognitive consequences of positive mood states. Keywords: mood; cognition; positive affect; attention P ositive affect may facilitate the attainment of desirable outcomes (Frederickson, 2001). In support of this idea, high levels of positive mood states are associated with higher income, more successful social interactions, and a longer life span (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). What are the mechanisms by which positive mood states facilitate the attainment of desirable outcomes? In general terms, mood-cognition frameworks have emphasized mood-congruent processing, whether related to judgment (e.g., Schwarz & Clore, 1983), memory (e.g., Bower, 1981), or decision making (e.g., Peters, Vastfjall, Garling, © 2007 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. by Maya Tamir on August 5, 2007 http://psp.sagepub.com Downloaded from