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 the social comparison theory, we predicted that reading negative news affecting a similar group would result in an impaired mood. In contrast, reading negative news about a dissimilar group should lead to improved mood. To test this, 150 undergraduate students read positive or negative news about the well-being of a similar or dissimilar group during the pandemic. As predicted, a mood assimilation effect occurred for similar groups, whilst a contrast effect occurred for a dissimilar group. This pattern went so far that undergraduates reported the best mood after learning that the elder generation suffered from Covid-19. This finding seems worrying and calls for future research.