The influence of positive and negative mood on the weapon focus effect

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between mood and the weapon focus effect (WFE), with a specific focus on how pre-existing mood influences recollection in the presence of a weapon. Two different hypotheses were tested. First, I proposed that mood would moderate the WFE by affecting how unusualness influences attention. Secondly, I hypothesized that mood might directly influence the WFE through a mood-congruence effect. A total of 301 participants’ mood was manipulated and then they were exposed to different scenarios involving a threatening (vs. non-threatening) object in an unusual (vs. usual) contexts. The results provided partial support for the mood-congruence hypothesis, suggesting that negative mood increased attention to a threatening stimulus in a usual context, and subsequently leading to the WFE (i.e., reduced recollection of details about a person holding a weapon). Specifically, consistent with a mood congruence effect, in the negative mood condition, participants displayed reduced recollection for a person-target when the weapon appeared in a usual context. Unexpectedly, however, participants displayed increased recollection when the weapon appeared in an unusual context. These findings suggest that mood influences weapon-biased recollection. The results may have important implications for eyewitness testimony by highlighting the importance of considering pre-existing emotional states when evaluating eyewitness’s memory accuracy.