Trim Size: 170mm x 244mm Van_den_Bulck iemp0255.tex V1 - 01/24/2020 5:19 P.M. Page 1 ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ Mood Management FRANCESCA R. DILLMAN CARPENTIER University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Introduction Mood management theory is a theory of media choice ofen applied to entertainment selections, such as movies, television programs, and music. Tis infuential theory sits among the communication feld’s variety of approaches to understanding selective exposure to media—the selection of, preference for, and/or attention given to a particular media message in favor of other possible messages. Concurrently, this theory sits within the feld’s canon of entertainment theories and approaches. Te main proposal of mood management theory is that media content choices are guided by the user’s current afective state: in other words how the person is currently feeling or what the person’s current mood is. Whether purposely or inadvertently, the user is apt to choose content that has the potential to optimize the user’s mood, improv- ing negative mood states, maintaining positive mood states, calming anxious feelings, or adding excitement to a dull feeling state. Tus, the main assumption of mood manage- ment theory is that users are innately motivated to manage and improve their current feeling states, whether they are expressly aware of this motivation or not. To ofer an example, imagine a person coming home from a ten-hour workday. Tis person has unfortunately experienced a series of mishaps throughout the day, from spilling cofee on their shoes to fghting with (and losing to) the ofce printer in attempts to remove a paper jam to falling out of an ofce chair during an already tense meet- ing. Te person, tired and in a negative mood, returns home and, afer preparing a quick meal, retires to the living room to sit in front of the television and eat. According to mood management theory, this person will be naturally drawn to choose a televi- sion program that provides relief from their day of mishaps. Tis program will likely be engaging for the person, comic or uplifing in nature—in other words, positive in its emotional slant, or valence—and likely devoid of any references to ofce problems or injury. If the choice was successful, the person will experience a recovery of sorts, having repaired their negative mood for the evening. In the following sections, the origins and theoretical underpinnings of mood man- agement theory in the feld of communication are frst described, beginning with an early study prior to the formal introduction of the theory. Te theory, as it currently exists, is then described in terms of its assumptions and scope. Finally, criteria for judg- ing the ability of a media presentation to efectively manage one’s mood are described, as is the presumed time frame for detecting mood-managing behaviors. Te International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology. Jan Van den Bulck (Editor-in-Chief), David Ewoldsen, Marie-Louise Mares, and Erica Scharrer (Associate Editors). © 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.