Representation in Self Portraiture This is a blog to keep track of my dissertation research and to help develop ideas in an organised manner.

Starting point:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_congruence
In psychiatry, mood congruence is the congruence between feeling, or the emotion that a person is experiencing, and affect display, or the manner in which that emotion is "presenting", or being expressed.
Moreover, in social psychology the definition mood congruency refers to a cognitive mechanism that explains a wide variety of mood effects in which there is a match in affective valence between people’s mood and their responses (Mayer et al., 1992)

• Congruent mood - smiling while feeling happy.
• Non-congruent mood - smiling while feeling anxious.
• Inappropriate affect - laughing while describing a loved one's funeral, for instance.

Mood Congruent Decisions/judgement:
     http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/mood_judgment.htm
Our judgments are not cold and logical: they are biased by our moods. When we are in a good mood, we see the world in a more friendly light, and our judgments are more positive. Likewise, when we are grumpy we evaluate things around us as being bad.
This can create a spiral, as positive judgments lead to positive moods. They also lead to positive moods in others, who then infect us back again.
Mood can be affected by such as movies, music and comments of others.

Affection Infusion Model...
     http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/affect_infusion.htm
Mood affects our judgments, but not consistently. For the mood to have an effect on our judgment, it has to override the forces that would normally lead to the 'standard' judgment.
Mood has no effect when:

• We are making judgments that are based on direct retrieval of a simple pre-formed conclusion.
• We are trying to satisfy strong directional goals.

Mood does have an effect when:

• We are using short-cut methods, such as heuristics, for making decisions. 
  • Mood sneaks in at the subconscious level, biasing our judgments without us noticing. At this level we typically use 'How would I feel?' type of evaluations, which are clearly affected by our current mood. 
• Elaborate reasoning, where we are using substantive processes.
  • Mood is not so strong at the decision level here. It does have an effect, however, at the more detailed level such as when what we recall is biased by our mood

small point, I don't need to mention everything on tis now, I can wait till later on in the dissertation... such as talking about mood affecting decisions perhaps this would affect the itnerpretation more than a project we have fully developed.... obviously other things would affect us more deeply than this. I.e nature has dealt us, our genes. Our predisposition
 
So seems I have a scientific side that suggests the unconsious and how we may be predetermined.
Then I shall also have this bit which suggests a shorter term impact on our decisions, our emotions, suggested that we are not rational beings. 
ALL suggest that it is more difficult to be fully unbiased when creating a self-portrait.









Simon Johnson www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk