RESEARCH PROPOSAL

The effect of Mood on Learning Tasks

Introduction

The mood may be defined as a subjective feeling state, which accompanies every

emotional experience, whether intense or moderate. Mood has been a focus of research in the

last few years.

Research Question

In this proposed study we like to understand what are the effects of mood on learning tasks?

Literature Review

Studies show that mood may act as a resource (Ellis, 2001) or it may act as

information (Bulgren, 2002) depending on the situational factors. Clark (2004) found that

mood has an effects on helping behavior; positive mood makes the individual more willing to

offer help. Mood has also been found to effect attention and vigilance (Lence 1999). When

people are under the effect of negative mood their vigilance of environment increases.

Further people allocate their attention to mood congruent stimuli.

As already stated in this proposed study the effect of mood on learning tasks will be

investigated. It is assumed that strong emotions and particularly strong negative emotions

interfere with cognitive processes and create, what is called cognitive narrowing. This

restriction of cognitive processes may interfere with learning and problem solving capacities.

So it is hypothesized that students with negative moods will have low performance on

learning tasks than students with positive moods.

 Methodology

Participants

Participants for this study will be a convenient sample of 40 students including both

male and female, studying in post-graduate classes.

Instrument

A list of 20 non-sense words will be used in this study to measure learning

performance.

Experimental Design

Independent group or Between Subjects design will be employed in this study.

Procedure

A total number of 40 students will be selected from post-graduate classes on

convenient bases. An effort will be made to include an equal number of male and female

students. These students will be randomly divided into two groups, with 20 participants each.

A negative mood will be induced in the students of first group by informing them that their

exams are announced to be held two months earlier than the previously scheduled dates. A

positive mood in the other group will be induced by informing them that there exams are

postponed for two months, as compared to previously announced dates.

After induction of positive and negative moods in the students of both of the groups,

every student will be given a list containing 20 non-sense words. They will be asked to try to

memorize all of the words in the list. After 20 minutes, the lists will be taken back and all the

students in both of the groups will be asked to recall the words.

Expected Results

In order to compare the learning performance of both of the groups, t-test un-related

will be used to find significance of difference in the mean scores. It is expected that mean of
word recall in the negative mood group will be significantly lower than that of mean of word

recall in the positive mood group.

References

Ellis, L. A. (2001). The mood as a resource in problem solving. Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 34(3), 23-46.

Bulgren, P. (2002). What conditions lead to regard mood as information. Journal of

Emotional

Regularity, 40(4), 234-256.

Clark, R. (2004). Helping and hurting; an emotional choice. Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 67(2), 123-35.

Lence, M. N. (1999). Attention as a cognitive processes under emotional reaction. Journal of

Perception and Attention, 67(4), 345-368.