The mood-congruent judgment effect refers to the fact that when a mood and an idea are similar in pleasantness, the idea will generally seem better in some way. For example, when people are happy, they will judge pleasant concepts as richer in their associations, pleasant attributes as more applicable, and pleasant examples of categories as more typical. This mood-related component of cognition is viewed longitudinally among normal students for the first time here. The authors demonstrate that over time, changes in mood covary with changes in judgment in normal individuals.
