Moods: Definition, Types, & Causes

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Are moods the same as emotions, or something more? Where do our moods come from and why do they change? Read this article to get the lowdown on the science behind moods.
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“What are you in the mood for?” “Put on some music to set the mood.” “He’s moody today – I think you should wait to ask about that.” We have so many ways to use the word “mood”, all of them reflecting the emotional atmosphere of a person or a situation. With our ever-changing emotions and busy lives, we expend a ton of energy seeking to “get the mood right”. But what are moods, exactly, and why do we have them?
This article will help you understand the science behind moods and the different types of moods.
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What Are Moods? (A Definition)

Scientists define a mood as a prolonged period of time in which you tend to feel certain feelings and have thoughts that mirror those feelings (Watson & Clark, 1997). For example, when I am in a negative mood, I might feel worried or upset, and my thoughts will generally follow this pattern, too. So rather than thinking, “That’s so thoughtful of them,” when my friends invite me over for dinner during an especially busy week, I might instead think, “Oh no, now I have to deal with letting them down, or getting behind on work because I said yes to them.”
 
Moods have two chief characteristics: whether they are positive (pleasant) or negative (unpleasant), and how intense they are (Watson & Clark, 1997). In this regard, they are much like emotions. When you say you’re in a relaxed mood, for example, you are probably feeling positive, but in a mild way. By contrast, when you are in an angry mood, things probably feel intensely unpleasant.
 
We are usually aware to some degree of the nature of our mood, even if we can’t change or control it (Watson & Clark, 1997). You probably can often sense when you’re in a good mood or a bad mood. One of the things that distinguishes moods from emotions (more on that below) is that moods are longer-lasting; one of the most frustrating things about moods is that just becoming aware of ours isn’t enough to help us change them.
 
Once you’re in a particular mood, it will likely continue for some time, even though it may not seem related to anything in your current environment (Russell, 2003). Sometimes moods seem linked to particular objects or experiences in your environment, and at other times, they just are (Siemer, 2005).

How Do We Get Into Different Moods?

Scientists think that moods are created by the experiences we have, especially experiences happening close together in time (Nettle & Bateson, 2012). For example, a morning of inconveniences – a traffic accident snarling traffic, a long wait at the doctor’s office, and then a bumped-up deadline at work – could put you in a state of anxiety. If you’ve ever had a morning like this, your response was actually adaptive: you reacted to an environment full of unexpected threats by putting your system on high alert so that you would be better able to respond to the next threat.
 
Psychologists think moods are important to study, not just because they’re a very important part of the lived human experience, but also because they impact how we perceive and respond to the world (Nettle & Bateson, 2012). You could call this emotional thinking – a phenomenon where our feelings shape the very possibilities of our thoughts.
 
As a therapist, I get to see this play out frequently. Sometimes a client comes to therapy too worked up from their day to handle a conversation about tough topics – they might have too hard of a time getting stuck in negative thought patterns, and I don’t want them to leave the session in that stuck place. Often, couples try to have difficult conversations when they are in a negative mood – after all, that’s when their complaints about the relationship are top of mind. However, their mood will make it difficult to listen well, paraphrase back, and empathize with their partner. This is why I generally encourage couples to take a “timeout” on hard conversations when the mood isn’t right and return to the topic later.

Causes of Mood Swings

For a small number of people, mood swings are regular occurrences, and for the rest of us, they happen at least once in a while (Broome et al., 2015). Those people who regularly experience mood swings are more likely to experience psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder (Broome et al., 2015).
 
For people with psychiatric disorders, their mood swings are likely caused in part by their genetics and their key developmental experiences (think nature and nurture) (Broome et al., 2015). These folks may be higher in neuroticism – they are just more likely to enter moods of anxiety and depression, particularly in response to stress (Andrews, 1996). But all of us are somewhat at the mercy of our environments, and a very emotionally resonant event, whether it’s losing your wallet or getting a promotion, can cause our moods to swing.

Moods Types

As I noted above, moods can be characterized by two dimensions: how pleasant or unpleasant they are, and how intense they are. Another way to think of this is how focused on reward versus threat we are (Nettle & Bateson, 2012). From this understanding, we can identify four examples of moods:
 
  • Mildly unpleasant mood: This includes states of boredom or irritation. You can think of boredom as the unpleasant absence of engaging activities, and irritation as a mood where your environment is repeatedly, but mildly, unpleasant to you.
  • Strongly unpleasant mood: This includes states of anxiety and depression. In this context, your feelings more powerfully influence your thoughts, and it can be very difficult to feel positively about your experience of the world.
  • Mildly pleasant mood: A sense of relaxation is probably the best example here. People who are relaxed are not highly motivated to do anything, but they are feeling good.
  • Strongly pleasant mood: Happiness, contentment, and joy are examples of strongly pleasant moods. Not only are you feeling very good, but you’re probably more motivated to do things to maintain or amplify those feelings.

​It can be helpful for your own ability to skillfully respond to your moods to think about what each mood type is encouraging you to do. Moods are temporary states – though not as brief as pure emotions – that shape our capacity to respond to our environments (Siemer, 2005). So let’s think about what the core affect in each mood is motivating us to do (Carver, 2001).

Our moods, like our emotions, attune us to our environments in specific ways. A positive or pleasant mood makes us more likely to pay attention to the rewarding things in our environment, while a negative or unpleasant mood makes it easier to notice things that are threatening or punishing (Carver, 2001). For example, my experience of a food court at the mall varies by my mood. In a positive mood, I may wander the entire space, taking in the smells and mentally savoring all my options. In a negative mood, I might instead notice how long the lines are and grumpily head straight to the shortest one.

Mood vs Affect

The key distinctions between mood and affect (the technical term psychologists use for what you’re feeling right now, in this moment) are time and context. Your affect results from the most recent experiences you’ve had – it is a direct result of what’s happening in your immediate environment.
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By contrast, moods are built on multiple experiences over time – they are not necessarily related to what is happening around you (Mendl et al., 2010). In fact, a defining characteristic of a mood is that it continues from one situation to the next. Meanwhile, your affect will change as you engage with new things in your environment.

Mood vs Emotion

While mood and affect are different in key ways, mood and emotion are pretty similar (Watson & Clark, 1997) in that they reflect the way you’re feeling for a longer period of time. However, some psychologists would say that emotions are more dependent on context, more intense, and shorter-lasting than moods (Parkinson et al., 1996). In addition, emotions are thought to arise as reactions to thoughts we have, while moods are not reactions to specific thoughts, but rather a series of recent experiences (Parkinson et al., 1996).

Let’s make this more concrete with an example. When your friend cancels your dinner plans, you may think, “I knew they didn’t really want to see me.” This thought would likely lead to an emotion of anxiety, sadness, or anger. It’s only when that emotion spills over into the rest of the evening – when you find yourself angry at your pet or frustrated by things that don’t usually bother you – that the emotion has become a mood.

Mood and Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are psychiatric illnesses characterized by persistent and mostly unchanging clusters of personality traits that are unusual. Put in plain English, people with personality disorders have very specific and rigid ways of dealing with the world. For example, somebody with narcissistic personality disorder has a virtually unwavering need to be seen as special, better than others, and adored or celebrated.

What does this have to do with moods? 
People with personality disorders may have more unstable moods than other people because they are not able to adapt to their environments as effectively (Links et al., 2003). For example, people with borderline personality disorder typically look to sources outside themselves for help with emotion regulation. Since their environments are constantly changing, they have a hard time staying regulated and experience lots of mood instability (Nica & Links, 2009).
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The situation is different for people with what are called “mood disorders” – namely, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. These are people who experience mood changes that are highly distressing and challenging, but not because of their personalities (Patel et al., 2015).

Mood Stabilizers

Mood stabilizers are psychiatric medications that regulate mood. These medications can both lift depressive moods and tone down manic, or highly energetic and positive, moods (Bauer & Mitchner, 2004). The most well-known example is lithium, which is used to treat bipolar disorder. There are few medications that treat both manic and depressive moods, but there are many other medications that, although not strictly “mood stabilizers”, are effective in reducing the intensity and duration of depressive moods.

​Mood Trackers

Your smartphone can quickly connect you to many mood-tracking apps; maybe it already has. Research thus far suggests that mood trackers may be helpful for both scientists and regular folks alike in better understanding how our moods change (Malhi et al., 2017). However, it will take more research before we know whether it is the mindfulness of one’s moods from hour to hour, or the insights gained from the process, that are most helpful.

Quotes on Moods

  • “When you don’t manage your life well, you become angry and frustrated as things don’t go as intended, and our bad mood is a sign showing we were not able to resolve the conflict.” – Jorge Bucay
  • “Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.” – Thomas Mann
  • “You don’t think in depression that you’ve put on a gray veil and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. You think that the veil has been taken away, the veil of happiness, and that now you’re seeing truly.” – Andrew Solomon

Articles Related to Moods

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

Books Related to Moods

To keep learning, here are some books to explore:​​

Final Thoughts on Moods

As with so many aspects of being a human, moods are something we handle best through acceptance. Our emotional reactions to the events of our lives are natural, and it’s just as natural that, over time, those reactions form the basis for a mood. While a mood may last for hours or even days, it is never permanent. Being aware of how our moods influence our thinking and decision-making can help us remain skillful and effective regardless of how we’re feeling.

And on that note, since we didn’t discuss how to change your mood much, here’s a video with some information that may help. It provides lots of useful examples of the actual experience – the thoughts and feelings – of different moods.

Video: How Best to Manage Your Moods

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