Predicting Responsiveness to a Depressive Mood Induction Procedure m Martin C. Scherrer and Keith S. Dobson University of Calgary Inducing various mood states—sad or depressed mood in particular— has become a widely employed and accepted means of experimen- tally examining the link between emotion and cognition, particularly with research on cognitive theory and depression. Using various criteria, studies utilizing mood induction procedures (MIPs) have reported successful induction of the desired mood in participants at rates ranging from 50 to 75%, clearly reflecting substantial individual variation. Individual differences in response to MIPs, however, have received little attention. Drawing on both theory and previous research, the present study identified and examined a range of possible predictors of response to depressive mood induction in a sample of 100 undergraduate students. Results indicated that of the examined predictors, experience with recent negative events prior to the mood induction and participant mood state, including self- reported symptoms of anxiety, significantly predicted reported mood state following the MIP. The implications of these results for models of vulnerability and resilience to negative mood states are discussed, and future research directions are provided & 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 65:20–35, 2009. Keywords: mood induction; depression; depressed mood; Velten mood induction procedure; vulnerability to depressed mood; response to mood induction Inducing various mood states in normal participants has become a widely employed and accepted means of experimentally examining the link between emotion and cognition. Cognitive models of depression, in particular, have generated a great deal of interest in, and research utilizing, mood induction procedures (MIPs; Clark, Beck, & Alford, 1999); however, reviews of the mood induction research literature have Our thanks are extended to Kelly J. Rose, who assisted in data collection and management. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Keith S. Dobson, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4; e-mail: ksdobson@ucalgary.ca JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 65(1), 20--35 (2009) & 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jclp.20537