Mood-Congruent Memory Bias

We tend to recall memories that align with our current mood. It's easier to remember positive experiences, and when we're in a bad mood, we're more likely to recall negative ones.

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How might external pressures impact your software team’s decision-making abilities?

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Cognition Catalog: Mood Cong... Feb 25 · Beyond UX Design 8:16   ​

Back when I was working for a giant corporation, there was just so much outside pressure.

Love it or hate it, the stock price is always super important to the executive leadership team.

Several years ago, I worked at a giant publicly traded multinational conglomerate. The executive board decided on an earnings target. I have no idea where the number came from, but pretty much daily email updates, we’d hear the mantra, “$2 earnings per share.”

I still don’t understand how that was supposed to help a software team build better software. While I guess the goal was to stress how important the work we were doing was to that earnings target, the result was that everyone ended up stressed out.

This stress affected not only the mental health of our team but it had a direct impact on our overall ability to plan effectively.

Thinking back on it and how it relates to today’s bias, I realized that this stress significantly influenced our willingness to take risks as we planned for future releases.

During times of high stress, we could only focus on past stressful situations and how leadership reacted negatively to various events when they didn’t go as planned.

The result was a team that was simply unwilling to take any risks, which, I strongly believe, hindered our overall creativity. The end product was undoubtedly worse as a result.

Ironically, in the case of enterprise software, poor-quality software resulted in a poor user experience, leading to longer time on task and inefficiencies in their work.

And guess what? This caused the company to miss that $2 earnings per share target.

Go figure. 🤷

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This phenomenon has its roots in cognitive psychology and has been extensively studied over the years. The concept took shape in the 1970s and 1980s when researchers began to explore the connection between mood and memory more deeply. One key finding from this period was that our emotional state at the time of encoding (when we first experience something) can influence how well we recall that event later on.

Further research from the 1990s onward has demonstrated that this bias extends beyond whether positive or negative memories align with our mood. Our current emotional state can actually influence how we interpret ambiguous information or recall neutral events. Our mood serves as a kind of filter or lens that we perceive our memories through.

What's particularly fascinating is how this concept relates to broader theories regarding memory and emotion. For instance, the mood-congruency effect strengthens the idea that our emotions can evoke specific types of memories, which can then impact our current mood. This creates a kind of emotional feedback loop.

This has important implications, not only for understanding memory but also for mental health, as mood-congruent memory bias can contribute to the persistence of mood disorders like depression.

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But what about for software teams?

Understanding mood-congruent memory bias can have significant implications for team dynamics, especially in a work environment that's as collaborative as software.

This bias can influence how the team perceives risks and opportunities. For example, a team member in a positive mood may remember past successes more vividly than failures, leading to a more optimistic outlook on a risky project.

Team members' interpretations and discussions of past events can be significantly influenced by their current moods, which affects communication and conflict resolution.

When most of the team is in a good mood, this positive atmosphere can boost cohesion, as members are more likely to remember positive experiences, fostering a sense of unity and mutual support.

Negative moods may prompt a focus on the negative aspects of a dispute, making conflicts more challenging to resolve.

Negative moods might lead to a more critical or risk-averse mindset, potentially stifling creativity and innovation within the team.

When I think about this bias, I think beyond my mood or the mood of a single coworker. Our team's mood plays a large role in overall team health, and it can greatly affect how we make decisions.

Something I think about a lot is how outside pressures can impact how a team works. Teams can work really well together on their own, but sometimes things like economic pressures, the stock market, even senior leadership, or other adjacent teams can play an out-sized role in our how our team is feeling, which ultimately plays a role in how we make decisions.

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🎯 Here are some key takeaways

1️⃣ Monitor team mood: Be mindful of the team's overall mood when scheduling meetings that require reflective thinking or strategic planning.

2️⃣ Train everyone on emotional intelligence: Emotional intelligence workshops can equip the team with skills to recognize and manage our emotions more effectively.

3️⃣ Encourage perspective-taking: Train team members to consider situations from other’s perspectives, especially during times of high stress or pressure. This can foster empathy and understanding.

4️⃣ Monitor workload and stress levels: High stress can exacerbate negative moods, making this bias more pronounced and negatively affecting the team.

5️⃣ Encourage team building activities: Regular activities that foster positive experiences can create a kind of reservoir of positive memories for team members to draw from during challenging times
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Learn more about Mood-Congruent Memory Bias!

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