The Association between Perceptions of Daily Experiences and Self- and Spouse-Rated Mood

摘要

A recent study by Rehm (1978) reported strong associations between the daily report of pleasant and unpleasant events and a global mood rating. This study examined desirable and undesirable events in an effort to replicate and extend Rehm's work by having 26 married couples complete a daily event and mood checklist about husbands for 14 consecutive days. The group averaging strategy generally used to describe event-mood correlations was compared to a tabulation of significant individual correlations. The observed correlations were consistent with a previous study of pleasant events by Lewinsohn and Graf (1973) and a study of unpleasant events by Lewinsohn and Talkington (1979), yet were considerably smaller than those reported by Rehm. Wives' ratings of their husbands' mood revealed the same relationships with experiences as did husbands' self-rated mood. Differences in the populations studied and the event and mood assessments between our study and Rehm's could account for this finding. A tabulation approach to the data showed that few subjects actually achieved statistically significant associations in contrast to the group approach which indicated small associations across all subjects. (Author)