Negative affect as a danger signal: Investigating the impact of different affect inductions on message processing.

摘要

The processing mode induced by the experience of negative affect is highly deliberative. This characterization of the relationship between negative affect and processing is based primarily on explicit affect inductions (i.e., appraisal based). This study hypothesizes quantitative differences in the processing style induced by explicit versus implicit (i.e., subliminal) affect inductions. One hundred eighty-three Ps received one of three affect inductions (neutral, negative explicit, negative implicit) and read one of two persuasive messages (strong, weak) advocating a mandatory statistics course. The data are not consistent with the hypothesized processing differences between the different negative affect inductions. Instead, neutral mood P s perceived differences in message strength between the strong and weak messages, however, negative mood Ps (both explicit and implicit) did not. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.