How do Good and Bad News Impact Mood During the Covid-19 Pandemic? The Role of Similarity

How do media reports about the Covid-19 pandemic influence our mood? Building on social comparison theory, we predicted that reading negative news affecting a similar group would result in an impaired mood. In contrast, dissimilar should lead to improved To test this, 150 undergraduate students read positive or well-being of during pandemic. As predicted, mood assimilation effect occurred for groups, whilst contrast group. The findings suggest can have strong impact direction these effects, however, seems depend strongly processes.