We have described these studies of mood in some detail because we need to emphasize an important truth: you are not the same person at all times. As your mood varies (something you are, of course, aware of), some features of your cognitive machinery vary with it (something you are not fully aware of). If you are shown a complex judgment problem, your mood in the moment may influence your approach to the problem and the conclusions you reach, even when you believe that your mood has no such influence and even when you can confidently justify the answer you found. In short, you are noisy.
