Alone and happy: Personality moderates the effect of happy mood on social approach

Happy moods are believed to evoke an approach orientation and to broaden one’s potential courses of action. Although positivity is strongly associated with approach, social approach is a more complex behavior because interacting with other individuals can offer either positive or negative consequences. We provide novel experimental evidence that happiness actually reduces social approach among individuals whose happiness might be threatened by social interaction. Specifically, experimentally induced mood interacted with participants’ personality, such that participants who were high in social inhibition (e.g., shyness, rejection sensitivity) sat further away from another individual when in a happy mood. We suggest that happiness may produce a general orientation to approach other individuals except when such approach threatens mood.

► Happy moods are thought to increase social approach relative to neutral moods. ► But social approach is threatening to some people (e.g., shy, socially anxious). ► We predicted that these people will not approach others more when happy. ► We found that personality moderated the effect of happy mood on social approach. ► Socially inhibited participants sat further away from others when in a happy mood.