Professional Documents
Culture Documents
24,
1994)
45-62 (
and
GEOFFREY P. KRAMER
IndianaUniversity - Kokomo
Abstract
The overwhelming majority of research on affect and social information
processing has focused on the judgments and memories of people in good or bad
moods rather than examining more specific kinds of emotional experience within the
broad categories of positive and negative affect. Are all varieties of negative affect
alike in their impact on social perception? Three experiments were conducted to
examine the possibility that different kinds of negative affect (in this case. anger
and sadness) can have very different kinds. of effects on social information processing.
Experiment 1 showed that angry subjects rendered more stereotypic judgments in a
social perception task than did sad subjects, who did not differ from neutral mood
subjects. Experiments 2 and
3 similarly revealed a greater reliance upon heuristic cues in a persuasion situation
among angry subjects. Specifically. their level of agreement with unpopular positions
was guidedmore by the credibility of the person advocating the position.
Thesefindings are discussed in terms of the impact of emotional experience on social
information processing strategies.
INTRODUCTIO
N
Recent research addressing the impact of affect on social perception and memory
has tended to focus on the effects of global mood rather than more specific kinds
Addressee for correspondence: Galen V. Bodenhausen. Department of Psychology, Michigan State Univer
s.hy, 129 Psychology Research Building. East Lansing. M] 48824-111 t. U.S.A.
This article was written while the first author was a Visiting Professor at the University of Heidelberg
and at ZUMA, Mannheim, Germany: the support of these institutions is gratefully acknowledged,
Thanks are extended lo Herbert Bless. Gerd Bohner. Michael Conway. Norbert Schwarz. Bob Sinclair.
Fritz Strack, and Michaela Wanke for helpful suggestions concerning this research.
0046-2772/94/010045-18$14.00
4646
G. V. Bodenhausen et 4 6 4 6
al.
of emotional experiences. The assumption inherent in this approach is that the overall
valence of affective experience is the variable of overriding importance in determining
the effects of affect on cognition. Presumably, bad moods are expected to have similar
effects, regardless of whether they are characterized primarily by sadness, anger,
anxiety, guilt, or some other negative emotion. The term 'mood' is used by some
theorists to refer to diffuse affective states often having antecedents or referents
that are unclear to the person experiencing the mood, Emotion terms such as 'anger'
or 'sadness' have more focus and presumably arise from appraisals of specific actual
or contemplated states of the world (e.g. Ortony, Clore and Collins, 1988; Smith
and Lazarus, 1990). To obtain a richer understanding of the impact of affect on
cognition, it may ultimately prove to be necessary for researchers to look beyond
the global mood and examine the effects of more discrete kinds of emotional exper
ience (cf Eagly and Chaiken, 1993). The research to be reported examined this
possibility in the realm of negative affect by comparing the effects of anger and
sadness on social perception.
There are several reasons to suspect that anger and sadness may have different.
kinds of effects on cognitive processes. The two types of negative affect show marked
differences in their physiological manifestations, and they appear to be mediated
by different elements of the limbic system. Anger, which primarily involves activity
in the amygdala, is associated with an increase in pulse, blood pressure, and secretion
of epinephrine; sadness, which primarily involves activation in the hippocampus,
does not produce comparable physiological effects (see Henry, 1986). These-differ
ences are reflected in subjective experience of bodily states, in that angry people
report experiencing symptoms of arousal (e.g. perceptions of greater cardiac activity,
a sense of restlessness, etc.) while sad people do not (Shields, 1984). To the extent
that the physiological concomitants of emotional experience play any direct or indir
ect role in producing the effects of affect on cognition, anger and sadness may have
very different kinds of impact (for evidence linking physiological states to patterns
of socia:I judgment and memory, see Bodenhausen (1990) Clark (1982) and Wilder
(1993)).
The literature on the effects of affect on social judgments has emphasized cognitive
and motivational theoretical accounts rather than ones rooted more directly in phy
siological mechanisms such as arousal or other neuroendocrine phenomena. It is
interesting to consider whether the logic of these accounts would imply any differences
in the effects of anger versus sadness on social perception. Two theoretical issues
wili be considered. First we will consider accounts for the mood congruency effect
in judgment, then we will turn to research linking affective states to differences
in information-processing strategies.
MOOD CONGRUENCY PROCESSES
The mood congruency effect refers to the tendency for people to render judgments
that are biased in the direction of a prevailing mood state. Theoretical accounts
of this effect emphasize the role of affect-laden concepts within the structure of
associative memory (e.g. Bower, 1991; Isen, 1987). According to these models,
affect
'primes' or activates concepts in memory that are associated (semantically or episodi
cally) with the affective state. These concepts may cue the retrieval from memory
life
point of research and theory on mood congruency effects, there is little basis
for
expecting any differences between the two affective states'. From the standpoint
of research and theory on emotion and social information-processing strategies, how
ever, it was expected that angry and sad subjects may differ in their tendency to
rely on global, heuristic strategies for generating a quick response requiring less
effort and fewer cognitive resources. Specifically, angry people may show this prefer
ence for heuristic strategies, while sad people may be prone to be detail-oriented
and more thorough in their processing. To test these issues empirically, three exper
iments were conducted in which sad, angry, and neutral mood subjects were asked
to render evaluative judgments based on a set of presented information. In addition
to the specific, relatively detailed information that was relevant to the judgment,
subjects were also provided with simple heuristic cues that could provide a basis
for responding to the judgment task. Of focal concern were two questions: (I) will
the judgments of both angry and sad people tend to be evaluatively more negative
than those of neutral mood subjects? and (2) will the judgments of angry subjects
reflect greater use of simple response heuristics, relative to both sad and neutral
mood subjects?
EXPERIMENT
1
Stereotypes can be viewed as judgmental heuristics that are relied upon by sociaJ
perceivers whenever they Jack the ability or the inclination to think more extensively
about the unique personal qualities of outgroup members (Bodenhausen, 1988; 1990;
Bodenhausen and Lichtenstein, 1987; Bodenhausen and Wyer, 1985; Chaiken et
al., 1989). Therefore, if a given emotional state is likely to engender heuristic styles
of thinking, this should include stereotypic thinking. In a series of four experiments,
Bodenhausen et al. (in press) found that happiness had precisely this effect: people
who had been made happy prior to engaging in a social judgment task rendered
more stereotypic judgments. Thus, the paradigm they employed seemed especially
useful in examining possible differences in processing strategies between angry and
sad people.
In.thefirst experiment, subjects were induced to feel either angry. sad, or a neutral
mood. Then, as part of an ostensibly unrelated experiment, they were asked to read
about a case of alleged misconduct on the part of a fellow student and to make
some judgments about the case. For approximately half of the cases, the accused
student was identified as a member of a social group that is stereotypically associated
with the type ofoffence alleged in the case. Otherwise, the case evidence was identical.
It was expected that angry subjects (but not sad ones) would show greater use of
the stereotype in making judgments about the case.
'It should be noted that Bower (1980) did propose that discrete emotional states may each be associated
with different subsets of information in memory. That is. there is no reason to assume that aJI negatively
valenced information is interassociated. However. even though different negative emotions may be associ
ated wirb different cognitive content. such content is still likely to be generally negative in tone. Hence,
it. would be difficult for 'priming' models of mood effects. especially as they have been developed in
the social cognition literature, ro account for differential impact of different negative emotions without
adding new assumptions to these frameworks.
Method
Subjects
design
and
Procedure
materials
and
Mood inductionSubjects were recruited for a study ostensibly concerned with mood
and memory. Upon arrival at the laboratory, they were greeted by an experimenter
who explained that, because the mood study was.so short, they would also be doing
an unrelated experiment 'if the experimenter shows up'. The first experimenter then
explained the basic nature of the mood study, which involved reminiscing and writing
about life events. In angry conditions, subjects were asked to vividly recall an episode
that had made them feel very angry, and to describe in detail how the event occurred.
In the sad conditions, the same instructions were used, except that the to-be-recalled
event was sad rather than angry. These affect induction procedures were adapted
from those used successfully by Strack, Schwarz and Gschneidinger (1985). In the
neutral mood condition, subjects were simply asked to recalland describe in detail
the mundane events of the previous day'. In each case, subjects were given 12
minutes to complete the task, which they worked on in private cubicles. Upon com
pletion of the memory task, the experimenter collected their forms and left them
in the charge of a second experimenter who bad arrived in the meantime.
Social perception task The second experimenter (who distributed a second consent
form) described his or her study as being concerned with the issue oflegal socializa
tion, particularly the issue of how college students react to the misbehaviour of
their peers. The actual social perception task was the same one used previously
by Bodenhausen (1990, Experiment 2). In this task, subjects are asked to take the
role of a member of a peer Judicial review board, to read a case of alleged misconduct,
and to render judgments about the case. Each case consisted of approximately five
to six sentences of specific evidence, mixed in its overall implications. Two cases
were constructed, one involving assault and one involving cheating on an examin
ation. For half of the assault cases, the student defendant was given an obviously
Hispanic name ('Juan Garcia'), and for the remainder he was given a non-Hispanic
name ('John Gamer'). For half of the cheating cases, the student defendant's name
was followed by the phrase, 'a well known track-and-field athlete on campus', whereas
in the remainder, this phrase was omitted. Previous research within the same subject
population demonstrated that male Hispanics were stereotypically viewed as aggress
ive, while student athletes were seen as being prone to cheating in their academic
work (Bodenbausen, 1990).
Dependent measures Immediately prior to reading the case, subjects were asked
~The neutral/control group subjects in this experiment were the same as those in Bodenhausem et al.
(in press, Experiment l). Data from these subjects were collected during the same experimental
session's (and from the same subject population) as the angry and sad conditions.
5.J
and
Manipulation check
Because the results for the two cases (i.e, assault and cheating) were comparable
(case did not interact with any of the independent variables), the data were collapsed
across this replication factor. Mean ratings of defendant guilt ate depicted in Figure
1 as a function of subjects' affective state and whether or not a ~stereotype had
been activated. It is clear from an inspection of the figure that stereotype activation
had no discernible impact on subjects' guilt judgments when they were in either
a sad or a neutral mood (Fs < 1), but there was a marked increase in the perceived
guilt of stereotyped targets on the part of angry subjects, F(l, 38) = 9.21, p < 0.005,
The interaction of stereotype activation and affect condition was reliable, P(2, 129)
= 3.83, p < 0.025.
This pattern of guilt judgments is noteworthy in several respects. First, it
provides empirical corroboration for the idea that anger is associated with more
heuristic information processing. Angry subjects clearly made greater use of their
stereotypic
'No!i'e of the subjects demonstrated any insight into experimental hypotheses during the probe Ior suspi
cions, although one subject did chide the researchers for failing to consider the possible contaminating
effects of the 'first' experiment on the 'second' one.
52
al.
G. V. Bodenhausen et 52
7.5
Stereotype
~Present
.s
Cl)
Absent
6.5
+..>
co::s
+..>
:'::l
o='
5.5
5
4.5
ANGRY
SAD
NEUTRAL
Affect Condition
Figure 1. Mean judgments of guilt as a function of affect condition and stereotype activation
beliefs than did sad subjects. Thus, it is evident that different kinds of negative
affect can indeed have different kinds of effects on social information processing.
Interestingly, the angry subjects in the first experiment displayed exactly the same
pattern of judgments as those of happy subjects who considered identical cases in
a previous set of experiments (Bodenhausen et al., in press). That happiness and
anger can have similar effects on social judgment while sadness and anger have
quite different effects underscores the importance of looking beyond affect valence
per se to the particular effects that are likely to accompany specific kinds of emotional
experience.
These findings are also interesting in light of traditional views linking prejudice
and stereotyping to emotional experience. While negative affect has often been postu
lated to be associated with increases in prejudice and stereotyping (e.g. Dollard,
Miller; Doob, Mowrer and Sears, 1939; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Rosen
blatt, Veeder, Kirkland and Lyon, 1990; Stephan and Stephan, '1985), the available
empirical evidence has focused almost exclusively on anger/frustration and anxiety.
The data from Experiment 1 show that anger is associated with greater use of heuristic
cues in judgment, while Baron, Inman, Kao and Logan (1992) have shown that
anxious people use more heuristic strategies for social information processing. Based
on the literature reviewed earlier, it appears that sad people, in contrast, seem to
prefer more systematic strategies for social judgment. Correspondingly, we found
no evidence of increased use of stereotypes in social judgment on the part of sad
people, nor have previous studies of which we are aware.
On the other hand, Esses, Haddock and Zanna (in press) have reported a study
in which people were made sad (via the Yelton procedure or v.ia sad music) and
then asked to list characteristics they consider to be descriptive of typical members
of various social groups. These characteristics were then rated in terms of their
valence (positive or negative) and the- proportion of people in the group possessing
the characteristic. A composite stereotype score was computed for each group for
each subject by multiplying the proportion and valence ratings for each characteristic,
summing this product across all characteristics listed by the subject for the group,
and then dividing this sum by the number of characteristics listed for the group.
For some of the social groups being described, it was the case that those in a negative
mood had more negative stereotype composite scores than those in a neutral mood
condition. This pattern was interpreted as reflecting an increased use of negative
categories in the interpretation of the evaluative meaning of specific characteristies.
Such a process would be directly in line with theoretical accounts for the mood
congruency effect outlined earlier. Note, however, that subjects were engaging in
a free association task in which they listed and interpreted the attributes of social
groups. Under these conditions we migilt expect the sort of 'mood priming' described
by mood congruency researchers to be most evident, as the task involves a fairly
unconstrained search of associative memory (for similar conclusions, see .Fiedler
(l 99 I) and Forgas (1992c)). In the present study, however, we found no evidence
that sad people show a mood congruency effect in judgments of specific members
of outgroups. In our task, negative affect may primarily have its effects via its impact
on processing strategies, whereas in the task used by Esses et al., its effects may
be mediated by mood-based printing of negative concepts in memory (for a systematic
review of the different processes through which mood affects social judgment, see
Forgas, 1992a,b)).
EXPERIMENT
2
ff anger leads to an increased reliance on heuristic cues in social judgment, but
sadness leads to more systematic processing, then differences in the effects of anger
and sadness should be evident not only in the use of stereotypes in perceptions
of guilt but also in other social perception situations and with other kinds
heuristic
cues. Experiments 2 and 3 were undertaken to determine whether the findings of
the first experiment would generalize to persuasion situations. Reactions to persuasive
communications represent a particularly apt arena for investigating the impact of
affect onsocial information processing because the dominant theoretical perspectives
in contemporary persuasion research strongly emphasize the distinction between
responses based on simple, relatively superficial cues and responses based on a
thoughtful analysis of the content of a persuasive appeal (Chaiken, 1980, 1987; Petty
and Cacioppo, 1986). According to these theoretical approaches, reliance on superfi
cial cues will be greater when motivation or ability to engage in more effortful process
ing of the message is constrained. To the extent that affective states affect processing
motivation or capacity as implied by recent theories of affect and cognition, the
tendency to use heuristic cues in a persuasive situation should be related to one's
momentary affective state. Previous research has already documented a tendency
for happy people to be less affected by variations in argument quality and more
affected by simple cues indicating the probable validity of the communication (Mackie
and Worth, 1989, 1991; Worth and Mackie, 1987) and sad people have been shown
to be more attuned to the quality of presented arguments (Bless, Bohner, Schwarz
and Strack, 1990), in line with our theorizing. However. it is still unclear what kind
of
of use sad people make of heuristic cues, and the effects of anger on reactions to
persuasive appeals have been largely unexplored. The present research was intended
to provide a direct comparison of the effects of heuristic cues on angry versus sad
recipients of persuasive messages.
Since the pioneering research of Hovland and Weiss (1951), it.has been repeatedly
documented that under many circumstances, people agree more with a source who
is reputedly high in credibility, compared to a less credible source who advances
.identical arguments (for reviews, see Eagly and Chaiken, 1993; Hass, 1981; McGuire,
1985). The two principal elements of source credibility are expertise (e.g.
Kelman and Hovland, 1953) and trustworthiness (e.g. Waister, Aronson and
Abrahams,
1966). In Experiment 2, we examined the impact of variations in the expertise of
a communicator on the reactions of sad, angry, and neutral mood subjects to a
persuasive appeal, while in Experiment 3, we examined the impact of variations
in communicator trustworthiness:
Method
Subjectsand
design
Eighty-three subjects participated in groups of approximately eight. All subjects
were introductory psychology students who participated in fulfilment of a course
requirement. Each subject was randomly assigned to one of six conditions defined
by a 3 (affect: angry, sad, or neutral) x 2 (source expertise: high versus low) between
subjects factorial design.
Procedure
materials
and
55
read the persuasive appeal. After listing their thoughts, participants then coded them
in terms of whether they were favourable, unfavourable, or neutral with respect
to the advocated position. Finally, subjects were probed for suspicions and provided
with an educational debriefing.
Results
discussion
and
Based on the results of our stereotyping study, we expected that the reactions of
angry subjects to a persuasive appeal would be strongly influenced by the presence
of a simple source cue, in this case expertise, while the reactions of sad people
would not be appreciably affected by this cue. Data relevant to this prediction are
provided in Table I, which shows subjects' mean agreement with the advocated
position as a function of their emotional state and the communicator's level of exper
tise. In an analysis of variance CANOVA) on agreement scores, the overall interaction
of source expertise and affective state was statistically reliable, F(2, 77) = 4.09,
p < 0.025. The simple effects of the expertise cue within each affect condition are
of particular i.nterest. While neutral mood subjects showed a trend to agree more
with the expert source, this difference did not prove to be statistically significant.
Angry subjects, however, showed a strong and significant tendency to agree with
the high-expertise source to a greater extent. Interestingly sad subjects actually
showed a trend toward agreeing more with the low expertise source, although this
reversal did not prove to be statistically significant.
Table l. Mean agreement with advocated position as a function of affect condition and source
expertise (Experiment 1)
Affect condition
Source expertise
Low
High
Angry
Sad
Neutral
2.00
3.86
2.36
4.67
2.69
3.79
Difference
2.67
-1.17
l.43
0.01
0.15
0.20
Overall, the data in Table I indicate that subjects showed little inclination to
agree with the advocated position, and thought-listing data revealed a preponderance
of counterarguing. At least two-thirds of all listed thoughts were negative in all
conditions except for the angry-expert condition, in which only 54 per cent of the
thoughts were negative, on average. However, there were no significant effects in
an ANOVA on thought-listing measures.
The results obtained in the second experiment nicely corroborate the implications
of the first study using a completely different social information-processing task
and a very different kind of heuristic cue. Anger appears to have very different
effects from sadness, in this case promoting the greater use of a simple heuristic
cue. Certainly there is no general mood congruency pattern evident among the judg
ments of angry or sad subjects. One intriguing aspect of the data was the apparent
trend for sad subjects to use the expertise cue in a reversed fashion. That is, they
appeared to agree more with the low expertise source. However. this finding did
not reach conventional levels of significance. In order to determine whether this
is. a phenomenon worth speculating about, a third study was undertaken to examine
the generality of the fin.dings reported in Experiment 2.
EXPERIMENT 3
ln the final experiment, we again examined the use of source cues in a persuasion
situation among angry, sad, and neural mood subjects. However, this time we manipu
lated the source's trustworthiness. When communicators advocate a policy that serves
their own interests and agendas, they are perceived as less trustworthy and often
have less persuasive impact than when they advocate a position that is unexpected
or at odds with their own interests (e.g. Eagly, Wood, and Chaiken, 1978; Walster
et al. 1966). The apparent trustworthiness of the communicator provides another
basis for a quick, heuristic response to a persuasive appeal that does not necessitate
thoughtful processing of message content. In the third experiment, we once again
induced angry, sad, or neutral moods among recipients of persuasive appeals, and
systematically manipulated the apparent trustworthiness of the communicator by
varying the extent to which the advocated position served the communicator's vested
interests.
Method
Subjectsand design
Ninety-one subjects participated in groups of approximately eight. All subjects were
introductory psychology students who participated in fulfilment of a course require
ment. Each subject was randomly assigned to one of six conditions defined by a
3 (affect
angry, sad, or neutral) x 2 (source trustworthiness: high versus
low)
between-subjects factorial design.
Procedure
materials
and
Affect induction The same method used to .induce affective states in the
previous experiments was used again.
Persuasion task The 'second' experiment was again described to participants as
a study of college students' opinions on a range= of issues important to them. In
this study, everyone wasgiven in essay on the banning of meat in University residence
hall dining rooms at breakfast and lunch. The.message consisted of five arguments
for the advocated position, presented on the same page in the form of a coherent
essay. The essay was attributed to one of two possible sources. Under high trust
worthiness conditions, the message was said to have been produced by 'the Student
Government League, which actively promotes the interests and welfare ofall college
students'. Under low trustworthiness conditions, the essay was attributed to 'the
Student Vegetarian League, which actively promotes vegetarianism and animal
rights'. In pretesting, these two sources were found to differ substantially in their
perceived trustworthiness for this topic. After reading the essays, subjects were asked
to report the extent of their agreement with the advocated position on an hl-point
scale (0 = strongly disagree,
l 0 = strongly agree). Then they were asked to
complete
a thought-listing measure in which they were asked to report any and an thoughts
that occurred to them as they read the persuasive appeal. After listing their thoughts,
participants then coded them in terms of whether they were favourable, unfavourable,
or neutral With respect to the advocated position. Finally, subjects were probed
for suspicions and provided with an educational debriefing.
Results and discussion
Mean ratings of agreement with the advocated position are presented in Table 2
as a function of subjects' affective state and the communicator's level of trustworthi
ness. As in Experiment 2, neutral mood subjects showed only a nonsignificant trend
toward greater agreement with the high credibility source. Angry subjects, however,
showed a marked and statistically reliable pattern of agreeing with the trustworthy
source to a greater extent than the source low in trustworthiness. And once again,
sad subjects showed a tendency toward the reversed pattern. Although the difference
between sad subjects' levels of agreement with the high versus low trustworthy sources
was not significant, it is clear that those in a sad mood did disagree significantly
more with the trustworthy source compared to those in an angry or neutral mood.
Overall, the interaction of affect condition and source trustworthiness was nearly
significant, F(2,8$) = 2'.82;p < 0.06.
Table 2. Mean agreement with advocated position as a function of affect condition and source
trustworthiness (Experiment 3)
Affect condition
Angry
Sad
Neutral
Source trustworthiness
Low
High
r.rz
2.42
2.40
Difference
3.94
1.47
3..93
2.22
-0.95
1.53
o.64
0.25
0.13
the importance of looking beyond the valence of the social perceiver's affective state
per se and beginning to explore the effects of discrete kinds of emotional experience
on information processing. In all three studies, angry and sad subjects showed clear
differences in the use they made of simple heuristic cues in the process of generating
evaluations of social information. Anger, sadness, anxiety, guilt, and many other
negative emotional states may each produce their own behavioural and judgmental
tendencies, and the same may be true for various positive states such as joy, hope,
and pride. Consequently, it will be necessary for theoretical developments occurring
at the interface of affect and cognition to begin to explicitly account for the specific
effects of discrete emotions (cf Bodenhausen, 1993).
With this in mind, it becomes clear that a straightforward mood congruency model
of affect and cognition will be inadequate to capture the full richness of the impact
of affect on social thought and judgment. Because .mood congruency perspectives,
at least as they are currently articulated, cannot easily account for variations in
patterns of judgment across different varieties of negative affect, they cannot account
for the overall pattern evident in these three studies. Recent theoretical developments
have indeed begun to incorporate multiple processes through which affect impinges
on social cognition (e.g. Forgas, 1992b), and it will become an important issue for
further exploration to uncover the conditions under which simple mood congruency
effects do and do not obtain, versus conditions in which more emotion specific
effects may be evident. The present data fit welJ within an adaptationist framework
arguing that emotions are associated with patterns of thought and action that serve
the needs of the types of situations in which the motions typically arise (e.g. Schwarz,
1990; Smith and Lazarus, 1990).
In order to make systematic progress in understanding the influence of emotional
experience on social information processing, it will be increasingly important for
researchers to look beyond mood valence. This will require the development of emo
tion typologies that explicitly identify the consequential dimensions on which differ
ent emotional states differ. As suggested elsewhere (Bodenhausen, 1993), emotions
may differ in their autonomic manifestations, the extent to which they produce rumi
nation or distraction, their evolutionary connections to mental and behavioural pro
clivities, and their tendencies to endure across time, as well as in many other ways.
It remains for future research to delineate the relative importance of these differences
in accounting for the differential effects of emotional states on perception, judgment,
and action.
Anger and social information processing
Centuries ago, Virgil wrote that 'anger carries the mind away', yet there has been
relatively little empirical documentation of the thought processes of angry minds.
It is certainly an issue of considerable practical importance to understand the effects
of being angry on one's response to persuasive appeals or to members of stigmatized
social groups. The present research indicates that angry people are significantly more
likely to rely on simple cues in reacting to social stimuli. Their judgements of accused
miscreants were more affected by social stereotypes, and their level of agreement
with unpopular positions was guided more by the apparent credibility of the person
advocating the position. Why should this be so? It was argued that anger arises
in situations involving physical and/or psychological harm, and as such, it may be
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