Applying insights from the mood-as-information and mood-as-input models to persuasion, it was hypothesized that negative (vs. neutral) affect would increase or decrease message processing depending on how recipients interpret their affect. Recipients who are (vs. are not) likely to question the legitimacy of the message were predicted to process to a low (vs. high) extent when experiencing negative affect. High salience of a judgment-irrelevant cause for negative affect was predicted to render affect uninformative and hence discount its effects on processing. These hypotheses were supported in two experiments with 388 university students, in which the likelihood of questioning message legitimacy was operationalized as high versus low vested interest (smokers vs. nonsmokers reading an antismoking appeal; Experiment 1) or by providing versus not providing a cue to the communicator being propagandist (Experiment 2).
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bless, H. (1997). Stimmung und Denken [Mood and thinking]. Berne, Switzerland: Huber.
2.
Bless, H. , Bohner, G., Schwarz, N., & Strack, F. (1990). Mood and persuasion: A cognitive response analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 331-345.
3.
Bless, H. , Mackie, D. M., & Schwarz, N. (1992). Mood effects on attitude judgments: Independent effects of mood before and after message elaboration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 585-595.
4.
Bodenhausen, G. , Sheppard, L. A., & Kramer, G. P. (1994). Negative affect and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24, 45-62.
5.
Bohner, G. , Crow, K., Erb, H.-P., & Schwarz, N. (1992). Affect and persuasion: Mood effects on the processing of persuasive message content and context cues and on subsequent behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 22, 511-530.
6.
Bohner, G. , Hauschildt, A., & Knäuper, B. (1994). Impact of happy, sad, and angry mood on the processing of persuasive communication. German Journal of Psychology, 18, 136-138.
7.
Chaiken, S. , & Maheswaran, D. (1994). Heuristic processing can bias systematic processing: Effects of source credibility, argument ambiguity, and task importance on attitude judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 460-473.
8.
Clore, G. L. , Schwarz, N., & Conway, M. (1994). Affective causes and consequences of social information processing. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 323-417). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
9.
Forgas, J. P. (1995). Mood and judgment: The affect infusion model. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 39-66.
10.
Frijda, N. H. (1988). The laws of emotion. American Psychologist, 43, 349-358.
11.
Hirt, E. R. , Levine, G. M., McDonald, H. E., Melton, R. J., & Martin, L. L. (1997). The role of mood in quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance: Single or multiple mechanisms?Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 602-629.
12.
Hirt, E. R. , McDonald, H. E., Levine, G. M., Melton, R. J., & Martin, L. L. (1999). One person’s enjoyment is another person’s boredom: Mood effects on responsiveness to framing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 76-91.
13.
Isen, A. M. , Shalker, T. E., Clark, M., & Karp, L. (1978). Affect, accessibility of material in memory, and behavior: A cognitive loop?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1-12.
14.
Izard, C. E. (1991). The psychology of emotions. New York: Plenum.
15.
Janis, I. L. , & Feshbach, S. (1953). Effects of fear-arousing communications. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48, 78-92.
16.
Jepson, C. , & Chaiken, S. (1990). Chronic issue-specific fear inhibits systematic processing of persuasive communications. In M. Booth-Butterfield (Ed.), Communication, cognition, and anxiety [Special issue]. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 5, 61-84.
17.
Lassiter, G. D. , Koenig, L. J., & Apple, K. J. (1996). Mood and behavior perception: Dysphoria can increase or decrease effortful processing of information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 794-810.
18.
Liberman, A. , & Chaiken, S. (1992). Defensive processing of personally relevant health messages. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 669-679.
19.
Mackie, D. M. , & Worth, L. T. (1991). Feeling good, but not thinking straight: The impact of positive mood on persuasion. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Emotion and social judgments (pp. 201-219). Oxford, UK: Pergamon.
20.
Martin, L. L. , Ward, D. W., Achee, J. W., & Wyer, R. S., Jr. (1993). Mood as input: People have to interpret the motivational implications of their moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 317-326.
21.
Matlin, M. , & Stang, D. (1979). The Pollyanna principle. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman.
22.
Merten, J. , & Krause, R. (1993). DAS-Differentielle Affekt Skala [Differential Affect Scale]. Arbeiten der Fachrichtung Psychologie der Universität des Saarlandes, 173. Saarbrücken, Germany.
23.
Petty, R. E. , & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 124-203.
24.
Plutchik, R. (1993). Emotions and their vicissitudes: Emotions and psychopathology. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 53-66). New York: Guilford.
25.
Pratkanis, A. R. , & Aronson, E. (1992). Age of propaganda: The everyday use and misuse of persuasion. New York: Freeman.
26.
Rosenthal, R. , & Rosnow, R. L. (1985). Contrast analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
27.
Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In E. T. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 527-561). New York: Guilford.
28.
Schwarz, N. , Bless, H., & Bohner, G. (1991). Mood and persuasion: Affective states influence the processing of persuasive communications. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 24, 161-199.
29.
Schwarz, N. , & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513-523.
30.
Schwarz, N. , & Clore, G. L. (1988). How do I feel about it? The informative function of affective states. In K. Fiedler & J. Forgas (Eds.), Affect, cognition, and social behavior (pp. 44-62). Toronto, Canada: Hogrefe International.
31.
Sinclair, R. C. , Mark, M. M., & Clore, G. L. (1994). Mood-related persuasion depends on misattributions. Social Cognition, 12, 309-326.
32.
Strack, F. , & Hannover, B. (1996). Awareness of influence as a precondition for implementing correctional goals. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 579-598). New York: Guilford.
33.
Wegener, D. T. , & Petty, R. E. (1994). Mood management across affective states: The hedonic contingency hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1034-1048.
34.
Wegener, D. T. , & Petty, R. E. (1997). The flexible correction model: The role of naive theories of bias in bias correction. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 141-208.
35.
Wegener, D. T. , Petty, R. E., & Smith, S. M. (1995). Positive mood can increase or decrease message scrutiny: The hedonic contingency view of mood and message processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 5-15.
36.
Weinerth, T. (1999). Persuasive Kommunikation: Einfluss emotionaler Zustände auf Einstellungen und Gedankeninhalte [Persuasive communication: The impact of affective states on attitudes and thought content]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universität Mannheim, Germany.
37.
Worth, L. T. , & Mackie, D. M. (1987). Cognitive mediation of positive affect in persuasion. Social Cognition, 5, 76-94.
