Approach and Avoidance of Emotional Faces in Happy and Sad Mood

Since the introduction of the associative network theory, mood-congruent biases in emotional information processing have been
established in individuals in a sad and happy mood. Research has concentrated on memory and attentional biases. According
to the network theory, mood-congruent behavioral tendencies would also be predicted. Alternatively, a general avoidance pattern would also be in line with the theory. Since cognitive
biases have been assumed to operate strongly in case of social stimuli, mood-induced biases in approach and avoidance behavior
towards emotional facial expressions were studied. 306 females were subjected to a highly emotional fragment of a sad or a
happy movie, to induce either a sad mood or a happy mood. An Approach-Avoidance Task was implemented, in which single pictures
of faces (with angry, sad, happy, or neutral expression) and non-social control pictures were presented. In contrast to our
expectations, mood states did not produce differential behavioral biases. Mood-congruent and mood-incongruent behavioral tendencies
were, however, present in a subgroup of participants with highest depressive symptomatology scores. This suggests that behavioral
approach-avoidance biases are not sensitive to mood state, but more related to depressive characteristics.