As a teenager I spent hours in my room listening to arch-
miserabilist pop band the Smiths. I felt they really understood
my teenage angst, and my love for them withstands even David
Cameron’s unrepentant fandom and Morrissey’s regular and
unsavory announcements. We spend a lot of time and money trying
to feel good, but there is also a pleasure in the melancholy
that listening to every Smiths’ song played back to back can
engender. Alongside teenagers, researchers use various
experimental methods for inducing mood states. These are often
used in studies which aim to investigate the correlation between
mood and neurological function. Self referential statements One
of the first mood induction procedures was the Velten Mood
Induction Procedure. Subjects read aloud self-referent
statements, which progress from the relatively neutral to those
associated with either a negative or positive mood. Example of
questions – this site suggests that the Velten mood induction
procedure should be used as a form of “guided med