Affect-as-Information about Processing Styles: A Cognitive Malleability Approach

The effect of mood on shaping belief and recollection following false feedback

The current study examined how mood affects the impact of false feedback on belief and recollection. In a three-session experiment, participants first watched 40 neutral mini videos, which were accompanied by music to induce either a positive or negative mood, or no music. Following a recognition test, they received false feedback to reduce belief in the occurrence of the events displayed in some of the videos (Session 2). This was followed by an immediate memory test and a delayed memory assessment one week later (Session 3). The results revealed that participants in negative mood reported higher belief scores compared to those in positive moods, despite an overall decline in belief scores for all groups following the false feedback. Notably, individuals in negative moods exhibited less reduction in their belief scores after encountering challenges, thereby maintaining a higher accuracy in their testimonies. Over time, a reduction in the clarity of participants' memory recall was observed, which correspondingly reduced their testimony accuracy. This study thus indicates that mood states play a role in shaping belief and memory recall under the influence of false feedback.

Is it true that negative emotions cause more utilitarian judgements? from the influence of emotion and cognition

ABSTRACTThe affect-as-information (AAI) model proposes that emotions influence the accessibility and value of information (Avramova & Inbar, 2013). Furthermore, according to the dual-process model of moral judgement, emotions and cognition influence moral judgement (Greene, 2007; Greene et al., 2001, 2008); however, there is no direct evidence of a causal chain to support this model's proposition. By using a 3 (emotions: positive vs. neutral vs. negative) × 2 (primed rule: save lives vs. do not kill) between-participants design, we examined two hypotheses in two experiments: supraliminal (Experiment 1) and subliminal (Experiment 2) priming. Our results partially supported the AAI model and confirmed that emotions and cognition independently influence moral judgement. Specifically, the positive emotions group made more utilitarian decisions after being primed with the "save lives" rule and more deontological decisions after being primed with the do not kill rule. However, priming did not affect moral judgement in the negative emotion condition. Further, irrespective of whether priming was done, the negative emotion group mostly made utilitarian decisions. Accordingly, we propose a dynamic dual-process model of moral judgement, that can help clarify how emotion and cognition influence moral judgement.

Affective influences on clinical reasoning and diagnosis: insights from social psychology and new research opportunities

Psychological research consistently demonstrates that affect can play an important role in decision-making across a broad range of contexts. Despite this, the role of affect in clinical reasoning and medical decision-making has received relatively little attention. Integrating the affect, social cognition, and patient safety literatures can provide new insights that promise to advance our understanding of clinical reasoning and lay the foundation for novel interventions to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient safety. In this paper, we briefly review the ways in which psychologists differentiate various types of affect. We then consider existing research examining the influence of both positive and negative affect on clinical reasoning and diagnosis. Finally, we introduce an empirically supported theoretical framework from social psychology that explains the cognitive processes by which these effects emerge and demonstrates that cognitive interventions can alter these processes. Such interventions, if adapted to a medical context, hold great promise for reducing errors that emerge from faulty thinking when healthcare providers experience different affective responses.

Medical decision-making with tables and graphs: The role of cognition, emotions, and analytic thinking

The shift from one-way to two-way communication in healthcare decision-making has heightened the need to understand the role of display formats including tables and graphs as decision aids. In this paper, we investigate cognitive and affective influences on decision-making involving display formats. We find that a display format's impact on decision quality is mediated by two distinct components of cognition (verbatim and gist knowledge), and that tables compared to bar graphs improve decision quality. We also find evidence that analytic thinking and lower negative affect can improve decision quality. Implications for marketers, better engaging patients, and encouraging improved decision-making are discussed.

Hedonic Consumption in Times of Stress: Reaping the Emotional Benefits Without the Self-Regulatory Cost

Hedonic consumption is pleasant but can interfere with the capacity to self-regulate. In stressful moments, when self-regulation is arguably still important, individuals often indulge in hedonic consumption. In two experiments, we investigate whether hedonic consumption negatively affects self-regulation under moderately stressful conditions and whether selecting hedonic consumption under moderately stressful conditions is driven by high or low self-control. In both studies, participants were randomly exposed to a mental arithmetic task that was either completed under time pressure with performance feedback (moderate stress) or without time pressure and without feedback (no stress). Experiment 1 assigned participants to a hedonic (vs. neutral) consumption task and then measured impulse control via a color-word Stroop task. Experiment 2 measured self-control as a second independent variable and recorded hedonic (vs. neutral) consumption. The results show that moderate stress buffered the negative effect that hedonic consumption has on self-regulation under no stress conditions and that high rather than low self-control predicts hedonic over neutral consumption under stress. These findings indicate that hedonic consumption in response to moderate stress may be a strategic choice to reap the pleasure benefit of hedonic consumption while the costs to self-regulation are low.

Disgusting Face, Disease-Ridden Place?: Emoji Influence on the Interpretation of Restaurant Inspection Reports

Every year, millions of Americans get sick from foodborne illness and it is estimated half of all reported instances occur at restaurants. To protect the public, regulators are encouraged to conduct restaurant inspections and disclose reports to consumers. However, inspection reporting format is inconsistent and typically contains information unclear to most consumers who often misinterpret the inspection results. Additionally, consumers are increasingly searching for this information in a digital context. Limited research explores inspection reports as communication tools. Using affect-as-information and ELM as theoretical frameworks, this experiment investigated how discrete emotions (e.g., disgust) conveyed through pictorial cues (i.e., emojis) influenced consumers' processing of inspection reports. Participants, recruited from Amazon's MTurk, were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions in a 3 (emoji: smiling vs. disgusted vs. none) x 2 (violation level: low vs. high) between-subjects design. Then, participants completed a questionnaire regarding perceptions and cognitive processing of the message. Results revealed that, compared to text, disgusted face emoji increased risk perceptions and avoidance behavior. In terms of emotion, smiling face emoji motivated participants to feel more emotions related to sanitation. In turn, positive feelings decreased elaboration likelihood. As predicted by ELM, involvement also predicted elaboration, such that participants who were highly involved with inspection reports elaborated more than those less involved. Involvement also moderated the relationship between emoji presented and elaboration. Practical implications are also discussed.

The Role of Vocal Affect in Persuasion: The CIVA Model

Past research has largely focused on how emotional expressions provide information about the speaker’s emotional state, but has generally neglected vocal affect’s influence over communication effectiveness. This is surprising given that other nonverbal behaviors often influence communication between individuals. In the present theory paper, we develop a novel perspective called the Contextual Influences of Vocal Affect (CIVA) model to predict and explain the psychological processes by which vocal affect may influence communication through three broad categories of process: emotion origin/construal, changing emotions, and communication source inferences. We describe research that explores potential moderators (e.g., affective/cognitive message types, message intensity), and mechanisms (e.g., emotional assimilation, attributions, surprise) shaping the effects of vocally expressed emotions on communication. We discuss when and why emotions expressed through the voice can influence the effectiveness of communication. CIVA advances theoretical and applied psychology by providing a clear theoretical account of vocal affect’s diverse impacts on communication.

Metastereotypes impairing doctor-patient relations: The roles of intergroup anxiety and patient trust

This study examined whether patients' negative metastereotypes undermine their perception of doctor-patient relations through raising their intergroup anxiety and decreasing their trust level. One hundred twenty-four outpatients from a Chinese hospital participated in this study; they were randomly assigned to either the negative metastereotype activation (NMSA) or the non-NMSA condition according to different instructions. Then, they were asked to complete the Intergroup Anxiety, Patient Trust, and Doctor-Patient Relations Scale. Patients' negative metastereotypes undermined doctor-patient relations through the mediation of intergroup anxiety and patient trust (i.e., the independent mediation effect of intergroup anxiety and patient trust) and the serial mediation effect of intergroup anxiety and patient trust. These findings suggest that future research consider intergroup anxiety and patient trust in developing interventions to improve doctor-patient relations.

Emotionally evocative patients in the emergency department: a mixed methods investigation of providers' reported emotions and implications for patient safety

BACKGROUND

Emergency department (ED) physicians and nurses frequently interact with emotionally evocative patients, which can impact clinical decision-making and behaviour. This study introduces well-established methods from social psychology to investigate ED providers' reported emotional experiences and engagement in their own recent patient encounters, as well as perceived effects of emotion on patient care.

METHODS

Ninety-four experienced ED providers (50 physicians and 44 nurses) vividly recalled and wrote about three recent patient encounters (qualitative data): one that elicited anger/frustration/irritation (angry encounter), one that elicited happiness/satisfaction/appreciation (positive encounter), and one with a patient with a mental health condition (mental health encounter). Providers rated their emotions and engagement in each encounter (quantitative data), and reported their perception of whether and how their emotions impacted their clinical decision-making and behaviour (qualitative data).

RESULTS

Providers generated 282 encounter descriptions. Emotions reported in angry and mental health encounters were remarkably similar, highly negative, and associated with reports of low provider engagement compared with positive encounters. Providers reported their emotions influenced their clinical decision-making and behaviour most frequently in angry encounters, followed by mental health and then positive encounters. Emotions in angry and mental health encounters were associated with increased perceptions of patient safety risks; emotions in positive encounters were associated with perceptions of higher quality care.

CONCLUSIONS

Positive and negative emotions can influence clinical decision-making and impact patient safety. Findings underscore the need for (1) education and training initiatives to promote awareness of emotional influences and to consider strategies for managing these influences, and (2) a comprehensive research agenda to facilitate discovery of evidence-based interventions to mitigate emotion-induced patient safety risks. The current work lays the foundation for testing novel interventions.

The Impact of Affect on Out-Group Judgments Depends on Dominant Information-Processing Styles: Evidence From Incidental and Integral Affect Paradigms

Two studies tested the affect-as-cognitive-feedback model, in which positive and negative affective states are not uniquely associated with particular processing styles, but rather serve as feedback about currently accessible processing styles. The studies extend existing work by investigating (a) both incidental and integral affect, (b) out-group judgments, and (c) downstream consequences. We manipulated processing styles and either incidental (Study 1) or integral (Study 2) affect and measured perceptions of out-group homogeneity. Positive (relative to negative) affect increased out-group homogeneity judgments when global processing was primed, but under local priming, the effect reversed (Studies 1 and 2). A similar interactive effect emerged on attributions, which had downstream consequences for behavioral intentions (Study 2). These results demonstrate that both incidental and integral affect do not directly produce specific processing styles, but rather influence thinking by providing feedback about currently accessible processing styles.

A Flexible Impact of Affective Feelings on Priming Effects

Four experiments found that positive and negative affect dictated whether primed social categories and trait concepts led to assimilation or contrast. This influence was further found to be flexibly responsive to the momentary activation of a global or local focus. When a global focus was dominant, positive affect resulted in assimilation to primed traits and social categories, and negative affect resulted in contrast. But, when a local focus was dominant, the opposite pattern of assimilation and contrast as a consequence of positive and negative affect was observed. These results are consistent with the more general view that positive and negative affect signal the value of currently accessible response tendencies and are, therefore, flexibly responsive in their influence cognition to changing situations and mental contexts.

Does Emotion Directly Tune the Scope of Attention?

Considerable research supports a fixed link between affect and attentional scope, with positive affect producing a focus on the forest, so to speak, and negative affect producing a focus on the trees. New research, however, reveals greater flexibility in this link than is commonly assumed. Research consistent with the idea that affective feelings merely influence whether people act on briefly dominant tendencies to focus broadly or narrowly is presented. Implications of these new findings for research on affect and attention are discussed.