Agency, mood and grammar. The role of verbs in managing sadness and its consequent inaction

Action propensity is linked to both mood and grammar: Compared to happiness, sad mood is typically envisaged as impeding agency. On the grammatical side, verbs prompt agency whereas nouns appear associated with lower agency. In two studies, we explored these relations showing that sad mood induced by music (Study 1, N = 98) increased the number of nouns (vs. verbs) in a word generation task. Conversely, when verbs versus nouns were experimentally primed and willingness to engage in actions measured (Study 2, N = 163), the propensity to engage in actions increased among people in a more negative mood. Together, the two patterns of results suggest that verbs may be strategically used to counteract inertia linked to negative mood.