Perfectionism, Mood, and Memory For Positive, Negative, and Perfectionistic Content

ABSTRACT- The current study examined how negative and positive mood influence the recognition memory of people with varying levels of perfectionism. An experiment was conducted in which 314 students were assigned randomly to either a positive, negative, or neutral mood induction condition. Participants completed measures of perfectionism cognitions and trait perfectionism and were tested for their ability to accurately recognize and remember previously presented words that varied in type of content (i.e., positive, negative, neutral, or perfectionism-related words). Analyses revealed that while in a negative mood state, participants high in the cognitive salience of perfectionism (as reflected by the experience of automatic thoughts) and participants high in socially prescribed perfectionism had enhanced recognition memory for negative words. The results suggest that certain perfectionists are cognitively predisposed to process negative information that will highlight discrepancies from perfectionistic standards and ideals. The cognitive processes and structures involved in perfectionism are discussed. Extensive research over the past 25 years has examined the effects of mood on memory. Much of this work has been guided by Bower’s (1981) affect-cognition congruency hypothesis. According to Bower (1981), when people experience