Can bad weather improve your memory? An unobtrusive field study of natural mood effects on real-life memory

0022-1031/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Inc. A doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.08.014 q This project was supported by a Professorial F Research Council and by the Research Prize by th Foundation, Germany, awarded to Joseph P. Forgas, an the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to C www.psy.unsw.edu.au/Users/JForgas/jforgas.htm. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.P. Forgas Can good or bad mood induced by the weather influence people’s ability to correctly remember everyday scenes? In this unobtrusive field study, we predicted and found that weather-induced negative mood improved memory accuracy. Randomly selected shoppers on bright, sunny days (good mood) or on cloudy, rainy days (bad mood) saw 10 unusual objects in the check-out area of a suburban shop, and their recall and recognition memory for these objects was later tested. Shoppers in a negative mood showed better memory and higher discrimination ability. The cognitive mechanisms responsible for everyday mood effects on memory performance are discussed, and the implications of these findings for current affect/cognition theories and applied areas are considered. 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.