An approach is provided that identifies a current mood state of a requestor from whom a question has been submitted to a question answering (QA) system. The approach determines, based on the identified mood state, an urgency associated with the requestor. Data pertaining to a number of candidate answers is analyzed with the candidate answers being generated by the QA system. The analysis results in an urgency characteristic that pertains to each of the candidate answers. Scoring of the candidate answers is adjusted based on a comparison of the requestor's urgency and the urgency characteristic associated with the candidate answers. Answers are selected from the candidate answers and returned to the requestor with the selected answers based on the adjusted scoring.