Mood: measurement, diurnal variation, and age effects

McNeil, James Kevin (1986) Mood: measurement, diurnal variation, and age effects. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (12MB)

Abstract

Nothing is known about mood in later life and measurements of mood in the young have both methodological and conceptual problems. This research developed a mood adjective checklist scale (called the Memorial University Mood scale, or MUMS) suitable for all adult ages. The MUMS was experimentally validated on old subjects and used to compare diurnal mood in both the young and old. -- In total, 1,972 subjects between the ages of 17 and 97 years participated in this research. Over 1600 of these subjects were involved in the development of the MUMS, and the remainder in its validation. -- An age invariant, two component structure of mood was found. These two components, labelled vigor and affect, were developed into highly reliable subscales of the MUMS. Both vigor and affect were found to be significant predictors of global mood. -- Vigor was found to change both diurnally and under experimental conditions in ways indicative of a measure of appraised somatic state. Specifically, vigor was observed among both the young and the old to follow an inverted U-shaped curve throughout the day, similar to several diurnal physiological measures. Vigor was also found to increase as a consequence of participation in exercise and to decrease after muscular relaxation. In addition, vigor was found to be higher at wakeup for morning people than for day or night people. Vigor was also found to be invariant under conditions where somatic changes were not expected, such as on negative days compared to ordinary days, or as a consequence of recall of positive and negative experiences. -- Affect was found to have characteristics indicative of a measure of appraised positive and negative environmental conditions. Diurnal affect was found to follow a primarily linear pattern, reflecting the measurement of averaged reactions to a variety of positive and negative events. Affect was found to become less positive after recall of negative experiences and to be lower on negative days compared to ordinary days. In addition, affect was also found to become more positive as a consequence of participation in pleasant activities such as exercise and muscular relaxation. -- The diurnal pattern of both vigor and affect were found to be age invariant; however, mean levels of both components of mood were found to be higher in the old compared to the young.

Actions (login required)

View Item