Want information? How mood and performance perceptions alter the perceived value of information and influence information-seeking behaviors

Currently, it is not well understood when positive and negative moods would encourage and discourage the process of identifying
and seeking out valuable information. Building upon the mood-as-a-resource hypothesis and the mood-behavior-model, this project
reconciles mixed findings by investigating and finding support for the hypothesis that positive moods encourage seeking instrumental
information when performance is perceived to be weak; whereas negative moods encourage it when performance is perceived to
be strong. These effects are due to mood influencing the perceived value (i.e. instrumentality) of information and cannot
be explained by arguing that mood altered the affective costs/benefits associated with the information. Overall, these results
indicate that positive moods may help individuals acquire information to resolve an existing problem, whereas negative moods
may help individuals acquire information when there is no apparent problem.