Can mood-inducing videos affect problem-solving activities in a web-based environment?

The purpose of this study was to examine whether a video-induced positive and negative mood has a differential effect on subsequent problem-solving activities in a web-based environment. The study also examined whether task conditions (task demands) moderated the mood effect. As in traditional experimental mood-effect studies, the affective video materials were not related to the tasks. The results show that affective video clips did impact performance on an insight task but not on a divergent-thinking task. This provides evidence that in some cases affective video has an effect on the performance of unrelated tasks in a web-based environment.