Announcements for March 16 Announcements 1 Website will

Announcements for March 16 Announcements: 1. Website will be available by Monday n n The URL of the page should be: http: //www. andrew. cmu. edu/course/88/120/ In the meantime, use the following URL: http: //www. tek 412. iwarp. com 2. Today’s discussants: Liz, Margo, Justin 3. 2 nd exam next week 4. Paper outlines due week after break Reason, Passion, & Social Cognition Week 9, Part 2

Theoretical Accounts for Emotion Effects on Attribution n I. Informational (“Affect Priming”) Effect n Emotion can facilitate recall and use of moodcongruent information (Bower). n Evidence: n n Happy people identify stable, internal causes when achieving and identify unstable, external causes when doing badly Sad people show the reverse pattern (Forgas, Bower & Moylan, 1990). Reason, Passion, & Social Cognition Week 9, Part 2

Theoretical Accounts for Emotion Effects on Attribution n II. Processing Effect n Good moods Heuristic processing n n Top down, global, processing More attention to categorical information (e. g. , famous name of speech writer) Not necessarily bad to be heuristic (Isen’s work) Bad moods Systematic processing n n Bottom up, detailed, processing More attention to specific information (e. g. , content of speech) How would this processing effect relate to FAE? Reason, Passion, & Social Cognition Week 9, Part 2

How Does Processing Effect Relate to FAE? n Assuming attribution is a two-stage process… 1. Explain behavior in terms of salient dispositional info. (“correspondent inference”) 2. Correct initial explanation (if motivated to do so) by factoring in situation. n Heuristic processing would amplify FAE Reason, Passion, & Social Cognition Week 9, Part 2

What Explains the Processing Effect? Functional Explanations (e. g. , Frijda) 1. Emotions serve a “signaling function” – telling us what needs our attention (and what does not) n Good moods recruit our attention to solve problems, bad moods do not. n 2. 3. Motivational Explanations Processing Capacity Explanations Reason, Passion, & Social Cognition Week 9, Part 2

Three Explanations for Processing Effect, (Cont. ) Motivational Theories (Clark & Isen, 1982) 2. n n Mood maintenance - Happy people try to preserve good mood by avoiding cognitive effort Mood repair – Sad people try to fix mood by devoting more effort to solving problems Reason, Passion, & Social Cognition Week 9, Part 2

Three Explanations, (Cont. ) 3. Processing Capacity Theories n Positive and/or high-arousal moods may impair processing capacity. Reason, Passion, & Social Cognition Week 9, Part 2