Mood and concentration grid performance: Effects of depressed mood

The current study tested Lane and Terry's (2000) proposal that depressed mood moderates anger‐performance and tension‐performance relationships. One hundred and thirty‐six male sport students completed the 24‐item Brunel Mood Scale followed by a concentration grid test. Participants were dichotomized into depressed mood (n = 59) and no depression (n = 77) groups. Structural equation modeling showed that mood predicted 41% of performance variance in the no‐depression group and 31% in the depressed‐mood group. As hypothesized, anger was associated with good performance in the no‐depression group and poor performance in the depressed‐mood group, supporting the notion that depressed mood moderates the anger‐performance relationship. Contrary to expectations, tension scores showed no significant relationship with performance in either group. Future research should continue to investigate the mechanisms underlying mood‐performance relationships.