The harshness effect is not mediated by self-reported mood.

Evidence

There was no significant difference in scores on the negative affect subscale of the PANAS, F < 1, but there was a difference in scores on the positive affect subscale, F(2, 87) = 4.82, p < .05, η2 = .10. A Tukey’s post hoc test revealed that what was driving this effect was that participants in the punch line joke condition (M = 24.33, SD = 5.45) reported more positive affect than did participants in the unexpected unexpected Biggles condition (M = 19.89, SD = 6.58, p = .01). However, the correlation between participants’ scores on the PANAS and their setting of the prostitution bond was nonsignificant in all three conditions (ps > .15). — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 57

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers the reader’s purpose: the effect survives controlling mood, supporting a meaning-maintenance mechanism rather than simple negative-affect arousal driving the response. — connects to: Mortality salience effects are not confounded with negative mood, which prior TMT research predicts. — Dmitrij Agroskin and Eva Jonas, Controlling death by defending…, 53; The pleasure principle is itself affectless and unreflexive, so pleasure is not an emotion — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 900

Broader Connections

• The pleasure principle is itself affectless and unreflexive, so pleasure is not an emotion #expands (0.72) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 900