. This research examines the consequences of positive and negative affective states on judgment and information processing. Positive and negative moods frequently influence the process of evaluative judgment. In addition, experiencing positive affect also appears to lead individuals to assimilate incoming information to their existing conception of a situation (top down processing), whereas negative affect leads them to accommodate their conception to the incoming information (bottom-up processing). These effects will be examined by manipulating positive and negative moods (e.g., by describing emotional events or watching emotional films) and then observing judgment (e.g., risk estimates, liking judgments) and performance in diverse cognitive tasks (e.g., gambling, impression formation, recognition memory). Experiments will be guided by a framework integrating the explanatory hypotheses of multiple theorists. The research has four specific goals: (1) to resolve issues about how objective and subjective information combine in judgment, (2) to determine under what conditions different theories make accurate predictions about the cognitive consequences of mood, (3) to examine individual differences in attention to emotion to test predictions about the mediating role of subjective experience in these phenomena, and (4) to determine the extent to which positive affect results in active rather than passive assimilation of information. %%% Project Justification. This research examines the influence of emotional feelings on both the content and process of thought. Prior research shows that a person's mood can readily affect one's evaluations and judgments. More recent research also suggests that mood affects how people think. Positive feelings stimulate people to rely on their own knowledge, beliefs, and intuitions, whereas mildly negative feelings lead people to attend outwardly to the situation, to be analytical, and to engage in new learning. These phenomena will be examined by inducing positive and negative moods (by asking participants to describe emotional events they have experienced or to watch emotional films). Of interest is the influence of the emotions on judgment (e.g., risk estimates, liking judgments) and on performance on various tasks (e.g., gambling, forming impressions of others, memory for previously seen material). Different explanations for the findings will be tested, focusing on four specific goals: (1) to learn how people combine information from emotions with information from the real world, (2) to determine when the different theories make accurate predictions about emotional influences, (3) to examine differences among people in how much they pay attention to their emotions and how that plays a role in these phenomena, and (4) to determine the extent to which people are active rather than passive thinkers when experiencing positive emotion.
