The role of affect in social thinking and interpersonal behaviour

Szczegóły

Utworzono: 11 maja 2007

Joseph P. Forgas

The empirical evidence

There are thus good theoretical reasons to expect that affect plays a significant and multifaceted role in how people represent the social world, and the way they form impressions and judgments and behave in social situations.

More extensive processing magnifies affect infusion. One key counterintuitive prediction derived from the Affect Infusion Model is that affect congruence should be greater when longer and constructive processing is required to deal with more complex cognitive tasks. This prediction has been tested in a number of experiments where the complexity of the social situation was manipulated to create more or less demand for an open and substantive processing style. For example, if one observes usual, or unusual people in a public setting such as a restaurant or a cafe, a well-matched couple is much more ‘typical’ and should require less elaborate and constructive processing than do couples where the partners are obviously mismatched in terms of features such as age or physical attractiveness. Several experiments tested this prediction (Forgas, 1993; 1995b). In a controlled replication of the above restaurant scenario, participants feeling happy or sad after viewing standard mood induction films were presented with images of well-matched or badly matched couples. Their judgments showed significant mood congruence as happy participants formed more positive impressions of the couples than did sad participants. However, when the couples were atypical and badly matched, mood had a much greater effect on judgments than for couples who were typical and well matched (Forgas, 1993, 1995b). In fact, the size of mood effects on judgments was strongest when the couples were most mismatched, intermediate when they were partly matched, and smallest when they were well matched (Forgas, 1995b).

Similar results were also obtained when we asked participants to respond to people who varied in terms of their prototypicality (Forgas, 1992). An analysis of processing latency and recall memory data confirmed that forming impressions about more unusual and atypical persons took longer, and there was correspondingly greater affect infusion into these more constructive responses. Surprisingly, the same kinds of effects can also be obtained when people respond to highly realistic social information, such as making judgments about their own intimate relationships (Forgas, 1994). In a counter-intuitive pattern, mood effects were consistently greater when more extensive, constructive processing was required to deal with more complex and serious rather than simple, everyday interpersonal issues. Jointly, these series of experiments provide strong evidence for the process sensitivity of affect infusion into cognition and interpersonal behaviors. Similar effects may also influence the way people interpret real-life social behaviors, as the next section will suggest.

Affect and front-end cognition: The interpretation of observed behaviours. Affect may also influence the way observed behaviors are perceived and encoded. This hypothesis was tested (Forgas, Bower & Krantz, 1984) by asking happy or sad participants to rate their own and their partner’s observed interactive behaviors on a videotape. As predicted, happy people ‘saw’ significantly more positive, skilled and fewer negative, unskilled behaviors both in themselves and in their partners than did sad subjects. These effects confirm that affect priming will subtly influence the kinds of associations and interpretations people use when encoding complex observed behaviors. Thus, a smile or gesture that may seem ‘friendly’ in a good mood may be perceived as ‘awkward’ in a negative mood.

Later experiments found that these effects also extend to the way people evaluate themselves. People in a negative mood made more critical, self-deprecatory interpretations of their own behaviors, but those in a positive mood selectively looked for and found lenient and optimistic explanations for identical outcomes (Forgas, Bower & Moylan, 1990; see Figure 1). Rather surprisingly, such mood-induced distortions can also influence reactions to highly familiar, intimate events involving close partners (Forgas, 1994). When partners in long-term intimate relationships were asked to evaluate their own, and their partner’s behaviors in more or less serious interpersonal conflicts, positive mood produced lenient, self-serving explanations. These mood effects were even stronger when the events judged were more complex and serious and thus required more constructive processing. Similar affective biases also influence the way people think about themselves, and these effects are particularly strong when people deal with peripheral, poorly rehearsed aspects of themselves (Sedikides, 1995).

Figure 1. The mood congruent effects of positive and negative mood on attributions for success and failure in an exam. Happy persons claim credit for success (make more internal and stable attributions) but reject blame for failure (make more external and unstable attributions). Persons in negative mood in turn take less credit for success, and blame themselves more for failing. (Data based on Forgas, Bower & Moylan, 1990).

The cognitive benefits of negative affect: When sad is better than happy? Affect can also influence the kind of information processing strategies people adopt. We recently found for example that the kind of vigilant, systematic attention to external stimulus details recruited by negative moods tends to reduce or even eliminate such common judgmental mistakes as the fundamental attribution error (FAE; Forgas, 1998c). As positive affect often produces a more schematic, top-down and heuristic processing style (Bless & Fiedler, 2006), the schematic perception of a ‘unit relation’ between the actor and the act leading to the FAE appears to be promoted by positive affect, and reduced by negative affect. This pattern was also confirmed in unobtrusive field studies. People who had just seen happy or sad films made judgments about the writers of popular and unpopular essays in an ostensible ‘street survey’. Positive affect again increased and negative affect decreased the FAE. Happy judges mistakenly assumed that that the views advocated in a coerced essay were in fact the writer’s own, but sad judges realized that the essays were coerced and discounted their relevance. Subsequent mediational analyses (Forgas, 1998c, Exp. 3) confirmed that these attributional biases were due to affect-induced differences in processing strategies: sad judges also thought longer about their responses than did happy judges.

Affective influences on processing strategies also influence eyewitness accounts of observed social events. In a recent series of investigation (Forgas, Vargas & Laham, 2005) participants witnessed complex social events such as a wedding or a robbery on a videotape. Some time later, they were exposed to a mood induction, and then received questions about the incident that either included, or did not include ‘planted’ misleading details. After a further interval, participants’ recognition memory for the incidents was tested. Temporary positive mood at the time when the misleading information was presented significantly increased, and negative mood decreased the mistaken incorporation of planted information into eyewitness memories (Figure 2). These effects were replicated in a field study, where students observed a staged incident during a lecture (Forgas et al., 2005). About a week later, they were induced to feel good or bad through watching videotapes, and were then exposed to questions about the incident that included or did not include planted incorrect information. Once again, those feeling good while hearing the planted information were more likely later to incorporate ‘planted’ details heard during the questioning with actually witnessed details. In contrast, negative affect reduced the incidence of such mistakes. These results – together with the evidence for mood effects on inferential mistakes such as the FAE - confirm that mild, transient affective states can have a marked influence on the way people process, interpret and remember observed social behaviors. Does affect also impact on actual interactive behaviors? This possibility was explored in several recent studies.

Figure 2. The interaction between mood and the presence or absence of misleading information on eyewitness memory: positive mood increased, and negative mood decreased the influence of misleading information on the accuracy of subsequent eye-witness reports (after Forgas, Vargas & Laham, 2005).

The possibility that negative affect may also benefit certain interpersonal behaviors was explored in several recent studies looking at affective influences on the quality of persuasive messages. If negative affect produces more accommodative thinking (Bless & Fiedler, 2006), it may also improve the quality of persuasive messages. This was confirmed in a series of experiments (Forgas, in press), where participants in a negative mood produced significantly more concrete, and ultimately, more effective persuasive arguments in support of topical issues (eg. student fees, etc.). This result is consistent with negative mood promoting a processing style that is more attuned to the requirements of a particular situation, and so improves the quality and effectiveness of cognitive performance. A second experiment confirmed these findings. This time, happy and sad participants were asked to argue either for or against Australia becoming a republic, and for or against the right-wing One Nation party. Results showed that sad mood resulted in arguments that were of higher quality and more persuasive than those by happy persons, with an intermediate performance by the neutral group (Figure 3). This result is consistent with negative mood promoting a processing style that is more attuned to the requirements of a particular situation.

Figure 3. Mood effects on the quality and valence of persuasive messages: negative affect increases the quality and persuasiveness of arguments. There is also a mood-congruent influence on the valence of persuasive arguments (after Forgas, in press).

In another study persuasive arguments were produced while interacting with a ‘partner’ through a computer keyboard as if exchanging emails. In fact, the computer was pre-programmed to ‘respond’ indicating increasing agreement or disagreement. Responses by the ‘partner’ communicated increasingly positive, accepting or increasingly negative and rejecting reactions to the persuasive messages. The negative mood group again generated significantly higher quality arguments. However, consistent with the Affect Infusion Model, the provision of a reward reduced the size of mood effects on argument quality by imposing a strong motivational influence on how the task was approached. These experiments provide convergent evidence that even slight changes in mood can produce profound differences in the quality and effectiveness of persuasive arguments. These results make sense in terms of our theoretical predictions, and suggest that negative affect promotes a more externally focused and bottom-up information processing style that was previously also found to lead to the reduction of some attribution errors and the reduction of eye-witness memory distortions (Forgas, 1998c).

Affective influences on skilled interpersonal behaviours.Humans are a gregarious species, and coordinating our interpersonal behaviors can be a demanding cognitive task (Heider, 1958). As social interaction often demands open, constructive thinking, affective states may infuse our thoughts, plans and ultimately, behaviors. Positive affect may prime positive interpretations and produce more confident, friendly, and cooperative ‘approach’ behaviors, whereas negative affect may facilitate access to negative memories and produce more avoidant, defensive or unfriendly attitudes and behaviours. We found, for example (Forgas & Gunawardena, 2001), that female undergraduates who were feeling good after watching a film behaved in a much more positive manner in a subsequent, unrelated interaction. They smiled more, communicated more effectively, disclosed more personal information and generally behaved in a more poised, skilled and rewarding manner according to raters blind to the affect condition. Sad participants were rated as being less friendly, confident, relaxed, comfortable, active, interested and competent than were happy participants. In other words, prior affect manipulation had a significant subsequent influence on interpersonal behaviors that was readily detectable by observers.

Affective influences on requesting. Making a request is a difficult and complex interpersonal task. Requesting involves uncertainty, and requesters must try to maximise the likelihood of compliance (by being direct), yet avoid the danger of giving offence (by not being too direct). In terms of the AIM, happy people should adopt a more confident, direct requesting style, as a result of the greater availability and use of positively valenced thoughts and associations in their minds (Forgas, 1999a,b). Further, in terms of the AIM these mood effects should be greater when the request situation is more complex and difficult, and requires more substantive processing. This prediction was tested in several experiments. In one study, mood was induced by asking participants to recall and think about happy or sad autobiographical episodes (Forgas, 1999a, Exp. 1). Next, participants were asked to identify more or less polite request forms they would prefer to use in an easy, routine and in a difficult, embarrassing request situation. Happy participants generally preferred more direct, impolite requests, while sad persons preferred more cautious, indirect and polite requests. Further, mood effects on requesting were much stronger when the request situation was demanding and difficult, and required more extensive, substantive processing.

These mood effects also occur in real-life interactions. In an unobtrusive experiment (Forgas, 1999b, Exp. 2), affect was induced by asking participants to view happy or sad films. Next, in an apparently impromptu development, the experimenter casually asked participants to get a file from a neighboring office. Their words in requesting the file were recorded by a concealed tape recorder. Negative mood resulted in significantly more polite, elaborate and more hedging requests than did positive mood (Figure 4). Those in a negative mood were also more hesitant, and delayed making their requests significantly longer. An analysis of recall memory for the exact words they used – an index of elaborate processing – showed that recall accuracy was positively related to the degree of affect infusion, as predicted by the AIM.

Figure 4. The effects of happy, control and sad mood on the politeness, and elaboration of requests used in easy or difficult interpersonal situations. Positive mood produces more direct, less polite and less elaborate requests, and these mood effects are significantly greater when the situation is difficult and requires more extensive processing (Data based on Forgas, 1999a).

Affective influences on bargaining and negotiation. Affective states should play a particularly important role in elaborately planned interpersonal encounters such as bargaining and negotiating encounters (Forgas, 1998a). In these studies, mood was induced by giving participants positive, negative or neutral feedback about their performance on a verbal test. Next, they engaged in highly realistic interpersonal and inter-group negotiation in what they believed was a separate experiment. The question we were interested in was how temporary moods might influence people’s goals, plans and ultimately, their behaviors in this interaction. Happy participants were more confident about the encounter, formed higher expectations about their success, and also planned and used more optimistic, cooperative and integrative strategies than did control, or negative mood participants (Figure 5). Surprisingly, these mood effects on bargaining behavior actually produced significantly better outcomes for happy participants than for those who were feeling bad. These findings clearly suggest that even slight changes in affective state due to an unrelated prior event influenced the goals that people set for themselves, the action plans they formulated, and the way they ultimately behaved and succeeded in strategic interpersonal encounters.

Figure 5. Mood congruent influences on planned and actual negotiating strategies: happy persons plan, and use more cooperative and less competitive bargaining strategies, and are more likely to make and honor deals than do negotiators experiencing negative affect. (Data based on Forgas, 1998a).

Affective influences on responding to unexpected social situations. Frequently we must respond almost instantaneously to a new social situation. When such events involve uncertainty and require constructive processing, responses should also be subject to affect infusion effects. This prediction was evaluated in a series of field experiments (Forgas, 1998b), where we assessed how people respond to being unexpectedly approached by another person in a public place such as a university library. Affect was induced by leaving folders containing pictures or text designed to induce positive or negative mood on unoccupied library desks. Students entering the library were surreptitiously observed as they exposed themselves to the mood induction. A few minutes later, they were approached by another student (in fact, a confederate) who made an unexpected polite or impolite request for several sheets of paper needed to complete an essay. Their responses were noted. A short time after this incident a second confederate approached the participants and explained that the situation was in fact staged, and asked them to complete a brief questionnaire assessing their perception and evaluation of the request and the requester, and their recall of the request.

Students who received the negative mood induction were significantly more likely to respond with a critical, negative evaluation of the request and the requester and were less likely to comply than were positive mood participants. Mood effects were markedly greater when responding to an impolite, unconventional rather than a polite request. An analysis of later recall memory for the incident confirmed the more substantive processing (and better recall) of impolite requests. Conventional, polite requests on the other hand were processed more superficially, were recalled less well, and responses were less influenced by mood. These results confirm that affect infusion was again significantly mediated by the processing strategy people employed.

Self disclosure. Self-disclosure is also a critical aspect of skilled interpersonal behavior, and essential for the development of rewarding intimate relationships (Forgas, 1985). Affective influences on self-disclosure were demonstrated in several experiments (Forgas, 2006), when happy or sad participants indicated the order in which they would feel comfortable disclosing increasingly intimate information about themselves to a person they have just met. Happy people preferred more intimate disclosure topics, suggesting a generally more confident and optimistic interpersonal style (Figure 6). In subsequent experiments, participants interacted with another person in a neighbouring room through a computer keyboard, as if exchanging emails. Using this ‘bogus partner’ method, the computer was pre-programmed to respond in ways that indicated either consistently high or low levels of self disclosure. Individuals in a positive mood produced more intimate disclosure, revealed more positive information about themselves, and formed more positive impressions about the ‘partner’, but only when the ‘partner’ was also disclosing. Positive mood did not increase the intimacy of self-disclosure when the partner was not disclosing.

Figure 6. The mood congruent effects of positive and negative mood on self disclosure: positive mood increases, and negative mood decreases the intimacy of self-disclosure, and these effects are significantly greater when the partner is high disclosing rather than low disclosing (unpublished data).

Why do these effects occur? In uncertain and unpredictable social encounters, we need to rely on open, constructive thinking in order to formulate our plans to guide our interpersonal behaviors. Affect can prime access to more affect-congruent thoughts, and these ideas should ultimately influence plans and behaviors. Thus, affective influences on social behaviors depend on whether open, constructive processing is required to deal with a more or less demanding interpersonal task. Whenever motivated, closed information processing is used, mood effects are reduced. The same mechanisms of affect infusion seem to influence the way people formulate personal requests, the way they respond to approaches by others, the way they plan and execute negotiations, and the way they produce persuasive messages and self-disclose (Forgas, 1998b,c; 1999a,b; 2006, in press).