Participants (N = 207) read one of three descriptions of mastectomy patients and then completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS) as they thought the patient would. The three descriptions were identical except for the type of relationship that the participant was asked to imagine having with the patient. A series of one-way ANOVAs indicated that people responded differently to 5 of the 6 POMS factors and the overall Index of Mood Disturbance depending upon the relationship they were asked to imagine that they had with the patient. These differences were significant. Newman-Keuls tests demonstrated the same pattern of results for each factor--those who imagined that the patient was their mother rated her as experiencing less mood disturbance than did those who imagined that she was a woman they worked with or a well-known public figure. These results suggest that people are able to recognize psychological symptoms associated with breast cancer and mastectomy but may have difficulty perceiving these symptoms in their own mothers.