When feeling is for seeing: comparing the effects of motivated perception between fear and anger on ambiguous threatening stimuli

We do not see the world as it is: distortions of visual perception can occur depending on the goals we wish to achieve ("wishful seeing"). Following functionalist theories of emotions (e.g., "feeling is for doing"), visual perception biases could also be involved in the link between emotion and specific behavior. Previous research has shown that anger can modify visual perception towards ambiguous menacing stimuli, or that fear can similarly direct our attention and perception towards threatening stimuli (e.g., weapons). The aim of our research was to replicate these effects by directly comparing the effects of these two emotions on perceptual biases and by relying on general mixed models to control Type I errors and reduce the risk related to the non-independence between observations. Our results partially replicate a perceptual bias toward threatening objects for both emotions although this effect depends on the type of stimulus and of the emotional dimension involved. These results are discussed in terms of the impact of emotions in attentional and perceptual processes and in relation to alternative theoretical explanations for motivated perception.

Can the induction of incidental positive emotions lead to different performances in sequential decision-making?

A growing body of evidence suggests that emotional states under which individuals perform decision-making tasks modulate performance. Studies have mainly reported that negative emotions can differentially increase or decrease performance by modulating feedback processing. In contrast, differential influences of specific emotions inside positive valence have been poorly investigated. The objective of the present work was to assess specific effect of different types of positive emotions on decision-making and to investigate whether this effect also depends on feedback processing. In our study, after being induced to feel either hope or happiness, participants undertook a risky sequential decision-making task in which feedback was required to obtain a good performance. We found that the more positive was the feedback received, the more happiness led participants to make risky decisions. This tendency was not observed among participants in the hopeful or in the control condition. Our results contribute to the literature showing that the effects of emotions on sequential decision-making performance can be explained by feedback processing and are not solely due to the valence of the emotional state. They also suggest that further research is required to determine which potential specific dimension is involved in the effects of positive emotions on sequential decision-making.

A Theory of Guilt Appeals: A Review Showing the Importance of Investigating Cognitive Processes as Mediators between Emotion and Behavior

Guilt appeals in the field of persuasion are quite common. However, the effectiveness of these messages is sometimes ambivalent. It is widely acknowledged that guilt leads people to engage into prosocial behaviors, but the effects of guilt can also be counter-productive (e.g., reactance-like effects). We argue that the explanations for these contradictions remain unsatisfactory and suggest that taking into account the implications of underlying cognitive—especially attentional—mechanisms would provide a better understanding of these paradoxical outcomes. This article provides a brief review of the literature on the link between guilt and pro-social behaviors and its classical interpretations. We propose a reinterpretation of this link by taking into account specific attentional processes triggered by the emotion of guilt. Attentional biases are, in our opinion, better predictors of the effectiveness of a message than the amount of emotion induced by the same message. This consideration should guide future research in the field of guilt appeals and pro-social behaviors. Implications, in terms of a broader comprehension of the emotion–behavior association in decision making processes, are discussed.