How would it feel if...? Mood as input to a role fulfillment evaluation process.

Most theoretical models of the relation between mood and evaluation suggest that people in positive moods tend to render more favorable evaluations than people in negative moods. If moods operate as input to a role fulfillment evaluation process, however, then mood-congruent evaluations are not inevitable, even when people incorporate their moods into their evaluations. Instead, the more people experience the feelings (negative or positive) they could expect to feel if the target had fulfilled its role (e.g., a particularly heart-wrenching sad story or an especially funny comedy), the more favorably people should evaluate the target. Three experiments supported this hypothesis. Only the mood-as-input model seems capable of accounting for the results.