The impact of affective and cognitive feelings on decision making
Final Report Abstract
The reported research investigated the influence of feelings on how individuals represent (social) situations. It was proposed that positive feelings (e.g., in form of happy mood) signal to the individual that their current situation is unproblematic and benign. In contrast, negative feelings signal a problematic situation. Benign versus problematic situations differ with respect to which cognitive processing style is most adequate for handling the different situations. Based on prior research it is argued that benign situations allow for more abstract representations whereas problematic situations require attention to details and consequently more concrete representations. Combining (a) the assumed relation between feelings and the nature of the situation with (b) the assumed relation between the nature of the situation and level of construal lead to the hypothesis that positive feelings elicit more abstract and negative feelings more concrete representations. This hypothesis was investigated with the background of Construal Level Theory (CLT). The broad integrative Construal Level Theory framework allows for deriving new hypotheses on the influence of various variables that are part of many decision and judgment processes (e.g., central vs. peripheral features, typical vs. atypical features, desirability vs. feasibility, pro- vs. con arguments, idealistic vs. pragmatic concerns, moral principles vs. consequences of actions, long-term vs. short-term goals). To empirically investigate the central hypothesis, we conducted experiments in which different affective (e.g., mood) or cognitive feelings (e.g., fluency) were experimentally induced. Subsequently participants were presented with decision scenarios and judgmental tasks. Moreover, we manipulated variables that were derived from CLT (e.g., desirability vs. feasibility). We then assessed whether individuals’ judgment and decisions were more likely to reflect a high versus a low level mental representation of the situation. Overall, the obtained findings reflect a mixed pattern. In several studies, the central hypothesis was supported. In these studies, positive feelings increased level of mental abstraction relative to negative feelings. However, several studies did not reveal reliable evidence for this general hypothesis. Looking at the results across all conducted studies, two particularly issues emerged as problematic. First, we could not establish a reliable method to assess level of construal as a mediating variable. Second, with respect to the role of fluency, individuals may interpret fluency in multiple ways (unlike affect), which in turn may lead to differential influences of fluency on mental abstraction.
Publications
- (2013). About swift defaults and sophisticated safety nets: A process perspective on fluency’s validity in judgment. In C. Unkelbach & R. Greifeneder (Eds.), The experience of thinking (pp. 220-233). Hove, UK: Psychology Press
Greifeneder, R., Bless, H., & Scholl, S. G.
- (2014). When fluency signals truth: Prior successful reliance on fluency moderates the impact of fluency on truth judgments. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 27, 268-280
Scholl, S. G., Greifeneder, R., & Bless, H.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1805) - (2016). A closer look at social psychologists' silver bullet: Inevitable and evitable side effects of the experimental approach. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 296-308
Bless, H., & Burger, A. M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615621278) - (2016). Affect and the weight of idealistic and pragmatic concerns in decision situations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 46, 323-340
Burger, A. M., & Bless, H.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2164) - (2016). Stimmung und Informationsverarbeitung [Mood and Information Processing]. In D. Frey & H. W. Bierhoff (Eds.), Enzyklopädie der Psychologie: Sozialpsychologie, Band 2 Soziale Motive und soziale Einstellungen [Encyclopaedia of Psychology: Social Psychology] (pp. 654-674). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe
Burger, A. M., & Bless, H.
- (2016). Urteilsheuristiken [Judgmental heuristics]. In D. Frey & H. W. Bierhoff (Eds.), Enzyklopädie der Psychologie: Sozialpsychologie, Band 1 Selbst und soziale Kognition [Encyclopaedia of Psychology: Social Psychology] (pp. 387-407). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe
Scholl, S., & Bless, H.
- (2017). Mood and the regulation of mental abstraction. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26, 159-164
Bless, H., & Burger, A. M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417690456)
