How to measure mood in nutrition research

© 2014 The Authors. Mood is widely assessed in nutrition research, usually with rating scales. A core assumption is that positive mood reinforces ingestion, so it is important to measure mood well. Four relevant theoretical issues are reviewed: (i) the distinction between protracted and transient mood; (ii) the distinction between mood and emotion; (iii) the phenomenology of mood as an unstable tint to consciousness rather than a distinct state of consciousness; (iv) moods can be caused by social and cognitive processes as well as physiological ones. Consequently, mood is difficult to measure and mood rating is easily influenced by non-nutritive aspects of feeding, the psychological, social and physical environment where feeding occurs, and the nature of the rating system employed. Some of the difficulties are illustrated by reviewing experiments looking at the impact of food on mood. The mood-rating systems in common use in nutrition research are then reviewed, the requirements of a better mood-rating system are described, and guidelines are provided for a considered choice of mood-rating system including that assessment should: have two main dimensions; be brief; balance simplicity and comprehensiveness; be easy to use repeatedly. Also mood should be assessed only under conditions where cognitive biases have been considered and controlled

Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS): Scoring Instructions

The BMIS scale is an open-source mood scale consisting of 16 mood-adjectives to which a person responds (e.g., Are you happy ?). The scale can yield measures of overall pleasant-unpleasant mood, arousal-calm mood, and it also can be scored according to positive-tired and negative-calm mood

Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS): Technical and Scoring Manual (3rd Edition)

The BMIS scale is an open-source mood scale consisting of 16 mood-adjectives to which a person responds (e.g., Are you happy ?). The scale can yield measures of overall pleasant-unpleasant mood, arousal-calm mood, and it also can be scored according to positive-tired and negative-calm mood

The Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS)

The BMIS scale is an open-source mood scale consisting of 16 mood-adjectives to which a person responds (e.g., Are you happy ?). The scale can yield measures of overall pleasant-unpleasant mood, arousal-calm mood, and it also can be scored according to positive-tired and negative-calm mood

Daily mood, partner support, sexual interest, and sexual activity among adolescent women

This is a post print version of the article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below.Objective: to examine day-to-day associations of coitus, sexual interest, partner emotional support, negative mood and positive mood among adolescent women. Methods: Women (ages 14 – 17 at enrollment; N=146) enrolled from one of three adolescent primary care clinics completed up to five 84-day diaries over a 27-month period. The diaries assessed partner interactions, sexual activity, substance use and mood. Partner-specific measures assessed on each day included partner emotional support (4 items; alpha = 0.94), argument with a partner (no/yes) and coitus (no/yes). Within-day measures assessed marijuana use (no/yes), Positive Mood (3-items; alpha = 0. 86); Negative Mood (3-items; alpha = 0.82) and Sexual Interest (1-item). Lagged measures of mood and sexual activity were included in multivariate models to control for recent mood and sexual behavior effects on current day mood and coitus. Two main analyses were conducted: coitus as a predictor of positive and negative mood; and the role of positive and negative mood as predictors of coitus. Analyses were conducted by multivariate mixed effect regression and mixed effect logistic regression models. Results: Data represent 28,376 days from 146 participants. The average number of diary days was 194 days per participant. Sexual activity was reported on 8.3% of days, with condoms used for 27.0% of these coital events. Marijuana was used on 11% of days. Significant predictors of positive mood on a given day included partner support, marijuana use, and coitus. Negative mood was associated with having an argument with a partner and with prior day coitus. Predictors of coitus on a given day included age (Odds ratio = 1.22), increased coital frequency in previous week (OR = 1.49), coitus on the previous day (1.21), increased same-day sexual interest (OR = 2.8) and decreased same-day negative mood (OR = 0.92). Conclusions: The data demonstrate complex associations of sexual interest, mood, partner interactions and sexual activity

Eliciting risk and time preferences under induced mood states

We test whether induced mood states have an effect on elicited risk and time preferences. Risk preferences between subjects in the control, positive mood, and negative mood treatments are neither economically nor statistically significant. However, we find that subjects induced into a positive mood exhibit higher discount rates and that subjects under negative mood do not differ significantly with a control group. Results also suggest that irrespective of mood state, introducing a cognitively demanding task before risk preference elicitation increases risk aversion and females are less risk averse when in all-female sessions than when in mixed-gender sessions

Detecting early signs of depressive and manic episodes in patients with bipolar disorder using the signature-based model

Recurrent major mood episodes and subsyndromal mood instability cause substantial disability in patients with bipolar disorder. Early identification of mood episodes enabling timely mood stabilisation is an important clinical goal. Recent technological advances allow the prospective reporting of mood in real time enabling more accurate, efficient data capture. The complex nature of these data streams in combination with challenge of deriving meaning from missing data mean pose a significant analytic challenge. The signature method is derived from stochastic analysis and has the ability to capture important properties of complex ordered time series data. To explore whether the onset of episodes of mania and depression can be identified using self-reported mood data.Comment: 12 pages, 3 tables, 10 figure

The Effect of Mood-Context on Visual Recognition and Recall Memory

Although it is widely known that memory is enhanced when encoding and retrieval occur in the same state, the impact of elevated stress/arousal is less understood. This study explores mood-dependent memory's effects on visual recognition and recall of material memorized either in a neutral mood or under higher stress/arousal levels. Participants’ (N = 60) recognition and recall were assessed while they experienced either the same or a mismatched mood at retrieval. The results suggested that both visual recognition and recall memory were higher when participants experienced the same mood at encoding and retrieval compared with those who experienced a mismatch in mood context between encoding and retrieval. These findings offer support for a mood dependency effect on both the recognition and recall of visual information