Lecture 5 Affect Flashcards
What is Mood congruence?
This is when people report attitudes that match their mood
People in a good mood will report more positively about things. People in a bad mood will report more negatively about things
BUT, if people missattribute the mood, mood congruence can dissapear
When can mood congruence dissapear?
Mood as information
* If we are asked to think about how happy we are at the present time, we may look to our mood as a source of information that may influence our judgemnet about how happy we are in general life. If we discount our mood as a peice of information,then we might respond differently
Schwartz & Clore (1983) methodology only
They assessed whether the weather would be used as a cue to inform mood.
* They called Ps on either a rainy day or a sunny day
* Some Ps were asked about the weather, or they weren’t (meaning the weather was made salient, or not)
* DV = happiness
Clore & Schwartz (1983) Findings
In the condition where the weather is not salient, people reported greater happiness scores on a sunny day compared to a rainy day
In the condition where the weather was made salient, the difference in the weather doesn’t matter and levels of happiness were the same.
WHY: In the condition where the weather is not made salient, the weather is seen as a source of information. When the weather is made salient, the weather is no longer a source of information that helps guide judgemnets
Mood congruence and attitude strength
effects of mood are larger when dealing with weak (or constructed) attitudes
* this isnt suprising, a strong attitude would not be affected by mood.
Mood congruence and individual differences and research supporting such a claim
Effect on mood congruence can also depend on the person
Haddock et al., (1994): Ps mood was induced either +ve, -ve or neutral. they were then asked to evaluate a target group (different social groups in Canada).
Results:
* they found that mood congruence effects (I.e. the extent to which peoples moods effected their favourability on the target groups) were dependent on affect intensity
Affect intensity = how intensely people experinece a +ve or -ve emotion
Mood and Persuasion
The impact mood has on persuasion depends upon elaboration liklihood =the degree to which people scrutinse the content of relevant information
Elaboration Likelihood model and Mood persuasion
Caccioppo & Petty (1986) proposed two routes of attitude change in line with the ELM:
1. Central route - when people pay close attention to the content of an appeal, occurs when people are able and motivated to pay attention. Results in long lasting attitude change
2. Peripheral route - people do not elaborate on the contents of a message, but instead areswayed by peripheral cues. Results in transient attitude change
Petty 1993 - ELM and mood & persuasion study - PROCEDURE only
They were interested in seeing how positive affect would play a role in the persuasion depending on the motivation
- Ps watched a TV show that contained a series of ADs. One AD contained a key object (PEN).
- Before viewing TV show and ADs, the involvement with a pen was manipulated: they told some Ps that they would recieve a free pen or coffee after the experiment
- they also manipualted mood by showing Ps a comedy show or a documentary show
- at the end of the experiment, they asked Ps for their attitudes towards the pen
Petty (1993) PREDICTIONS of the study
Low elaboration = Ps were told that they would get a free coffee. No motivation t pay attention to the pen. Therefore, researcehrs argued that these Ps should display simple cue effects (I am in a good mood so I will like the pen)
High elaboration = Ps were told that they would get a free pen. So there is high motivation to pay attention to the pen. Therefore, researchers argue that under these conditions, people are going to pay attention to the contents od the message, and mood is going to serve bias to my thoughts.
Petty (1993) Findings
In low elaboration:
* People in the +ve mood were more +ve in their attitudes towards the pen compared to the neutral condiion
* from a regression analysis they found that mood does not impact positivity of personal thoughts. People in the +ve or neutral mood condition did not differ in the positivity of their thoughts under low elaboration
* consistent with ELM because these individuals arent motivated to pay attention to the message (under LE, mood influences attitudes unmediated by thoughts)
In high elaboration:
* mood impacted attitudes. A positive mood meant more positive attitudes towards the pen. BUT the process underlying this effect is different.
* under HE, mood had a significant impact on their cogntive responses.
* the mood and the cognitive responses drove the attitude. There was significant predicatbility from the positivity of their thoughts to attitudes. The mood itself did not have a direct effect on attitude.
Findings to Petty (1993) in diagram form …
Under low elaboration, mood has a direct effect:
* Mood —(0.2)—->% of +ve thoughts —(0.13)—> Attitude
* Mood ——-(0.19 * )——> attitude
Under high elaboration, mood serves to bias thoughts which impacts attitudes
* Mood —(0.34 * )—->% of +ve thoughts —(.34 * )—> Attitude
* Mood ——(0.10) ——-> attitude
High elaboration leads to longer lasting effects
What is Integral Affect
Feelings associated with an attitude object
* mere exposure
* conditioning
Incidental affect
affective state not linked to an object that can influence judgement
* mood
Mere exposure
Repeated exposure to stimuli can elicit positive affect that can go onto influence attitudes
Festinger et al., (1950)
Did an experiemnt to look at how the design of an apartment might influence the extent to which people form friendships. Specifically looking at which flat they lived in, and the friends they formed.
If it is the case that we end up reporting to be closer to thepeople we see more often;
* can look at physical distance and functional distance
Results:
* Physical distance did have an effect - people who lived 1 door away from eachother were more likely to be friends.
* Functional distance did have an effect - people living iin the flats next to the stairs reported having more friends
Evidence of propinquity (mere exposure to people) - the more we interact with something, the more exposure, the more we like
Zajonc (1968)
Shows evidence of mere exposure without interaction.
* Researchers showed Ps unfamiliar stimuli. Ps were shown different stimul a different number of times. After exposure phase, researchers showed all the stimuli to Ps and asked them to indicate how much they liked them.
Results:
* repeated exposure to novel stimuli elicits positive feelings. The more Ps saw something, the more they liked it.
Moreland & Beach (1992)
This is more of real-world example:
* 4 female confederates posed as students in a class. They sat at the frnt so that they were noticeable. The independent variable was how many times these confederates would come to class. Some would be there every class, others hardly any (all varied)
* they asked students in the class to rate how much they liked each person
Results:
* There was a positive effect - the more they saw someone, the more they liked them. They also found that these effects occur even when students were unaware of seeing the person before
What about Mere Exposure and things we dislike?
When we dislike something, making an attitude more positive is changing an opinion
For things we dislike, there is not string evidence that mere exposure will increase favourability
Montaya et al., (2017): carried out a recent meta-anaysis that showed no string effect for repeated exposure and disliked stimuli.
When are mere exposure effects most likely to occur?
- mere exposure is greatest when stimuli are complex and they are presented a limited number of times (perceptual fluency)
- mere exposure has been found on Explicit and Implicit measures of attitude
- mere exposure effects have been found accross cultures, species and a diverse range of stimuli
- mere exposure has more impact on visual stimuli than audio stimuli (Montoya et al., 2017).
What underlies this mere exposure effect?
- Repeated exposure to something can reduce the uncertainty (less threat)
- easier to process stimuli that has been presented multiple times (perceptual fluency)
Monahan et al., (2000) Both studies…
Looked at how repeated exposure may affect attitudes at a non-concious level
- They showed Ps either 25 different images OR the same 5 images 5 times. They wanted to assess whether these different exposures impact mood
* Results - Ps who were shown a smaller number of stimuli a number of times reported better mood than Ps shown the stimuli only once - They assessed the extent to which you might get a spill over effect - will new, but familiar stimuli still evoke +ve mood?
* Results - they found that repeated exposure influences subsequnt ratings of similar stimuli
Carr et al., (2017)
Looked at mere exposure, and spill over effects, but with faces:
* Ps were exposed to a range of faces many times, and some faces only a couple of times.
Results: The faces with higher exposure were rated more positively in terms of happiness and attractiveness
- Ps were also exposed to ‘new faces’, but these faces were similar to already observed faces (high familiarity).
Results: familiarity made the faces look more happy an attractive, eventhough these faces were never seen before.
Evidence that thinking weve seen something before, even if we havent, predicts liking.
Emotion Learning
‘Conditioning’ - direct tagging/linking an emotion to an attitude object. This is when we take an object and directly pair it with something that elicits positive or negative affect
Evaluative conditioning
This is pairing unfamilair objects with +ve or -ve valence.
This is the most direct and most important form of this conditioning process with attitudes.
* linked with pavlovin conditioning
* after a number of presentations of expressed links between object and +ve or -ve valence, the object itself elicits this affect response.
Krosnick et al., (1992): evaluative conditioning
Ps are shown a photo of an unfamiliar person. Each photo is briefly preceeded by an affact arousing stimuli (either +ve or -ve) for miliseconds. They then measured peoples evaluations of the unfamiliar individuals
* Results - when people were asked to rate the attitude, traits and attractiveness of the people, they found significant differences on each of these measures depending on the brief display of +ve and -ve preceeding photos.
When the target was paired with a +ve photo, they rated the person more favourably.
When the target was paired with a -ve photo, they rated the person less favourably.
Olsen & Fazio (2006): evaluative conditioning, implications for PREJUDICE - methodology only
Another example of evaluative conditioning that has more implications (implications for prejudice)
* Video surveillance task, where Ps had to press a key when they saw a target (e.g. a lizard)
* The target was presented amongst other stimuli, and people had to look through the stimuli presented to find the target
* the otehr stimuli were either black or white faces AND positive or negative words:
1. 4 black faces, 4+ve words
2. 4 white faces, 4-ve words
3. control, both black and white faces, both +ve and -ve words.
* After the evaluative conditioning task, Ps completed an implicit association test.
Olsen & Fazio (2006): evaluative conditioning - Findings only
Ps in the evaluative conditioning task showed more +ve implicit racial attitudes (those primed with black faces and +ve words). Such results were also observed 2 days later.
Implies effects of attitude change not only formation
Donnelly et al., (2018): Evaluative conditioning, implications for HEALTH
Looked to link negative affect with food products that are unhealthy. They added labels near sugary drinks over 2 weeks. the labels either presented factual information or emotive information.
Results - the negative affect link decreased consumption of unhealthy drinks by 15% compared to baseline and factual information condition.
Something important about linking object with a negative affect
Behaviour conditioning
Pairing an emotion with a behaviour that has been performed (e.g. reinforcing a child for +ve behaviour)
Insko & Cialdini (1969): behaviour conditioning
Called students and asked then for their opinions on pay T.V.
* experimental group - there was a verbal positive reinforcer (“good”) if people provided support for pay tv
* control group - no reinforcement if people provided support for paid TV.
Results - later, when asked on their responses towards paid TV, there were more favourable attitudes in the experimental group compared to the control group. Ps did not see the link between response and reinforcment. Also, these effects persisted over time.
Observational conditioning
Learning valence of objects by watching others
Gerull & Rapee (2002): observational conditioning
children were shown 2 stimuli, each paired with an emotion modelled by mother.
results - things associated with -ve affect from the mother was avoided by the children .
Mood and Attitudes
This is looking directly at the impact mood has on attitudes people express towards an object
What is mood?
A globalised, general, affective state not directed against a particular target. Mood is how you are feeling, regardless of an object - more general.
Mood as a variable in psychology
- mood can be both an IV and a DV
- mood can be induced by getting Ps to write an autobiographical report, music, film, faceial expressions, self statements.
