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The Influence of Affect on Categorization

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Alice M. Isen
Alice M. Isen
Alice M. Isen
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Kimberly Daubman at Bucknell University
Kimberly Daubman
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Abstract

Four studies with 256 undergraduates showed that positive affect, induced in any of 3 ways, influenced categorization of either of 2 types of stimuli—words or colors. As reflected by performance on 2 types of tasks (rating and sorting), Ss in whom positive affect had been induced tended to create and use categories more inclusively than did Ss in a control condition. On one task, they tended to group more stimuli together, and on the other task they tended to rate more low-prototypic exemplars of a category as members of the category. Results are interpreted in terms of an influence of affect on cognitive organization or on processes that might influence cognitive organization. It is suggested that borderline effects of negative affect on categorization, obtained in 2 of the studies, might result from normal people's attempts to cope with negative affect. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Journal of foionality and Social Psychology
1984.
Vol. 47. No 6. 1206-1217Copyright 1984 by ife
Psychological A norm
KM.
\K
The Influence of Affect on Categorization
Alice M. Isen and Kimberly A. Daubman
University of Maryland
Three studies and a pilot experiment showed that positive affect, induced in any
of three ways, influenced categorization of either of two types of stimuli—words
or colors. As reflected by performance on two types of tasks (rating and sorting),
people in whom positive affect had been induced tended to create and use
categories more inclusively than did subjects in a control condition. On one task,
they tended to group more stimuli together, and on the other task they tended to
rate more low-prototypic exemplars of a category as members of the category.
These results are interpreted in terms of an influence of affect on cognitive
organization or on processes that might influence cognitive organization. It is
suggested that borderline effects of negative affect on categorization, obtained in
two of the studies, might result from normal people's attempts to cope with
negative affect.
Recent research has suggested that positive
affect may have a pervasive effect on cognitive
processes. For example, a mild positive affec-
tive state has been shown to be capable of
serving as a retrieval cue for positive material
in memory, regardless of the affective state
the subject was in when the list was learned,
influencing such measures as the reaction
time for recall of positive words and the
subset of words likely to be recalled from a
memorized list (e.g., Isen, Shalker, Clark, &
Karp,
1978; Laird, Wagener, Halal, & Szegda,
1982;
Nasby & Yando, 1982; Teasdale &
Fogarty, 1979). Moreover, a mild positive
affective state of the kind likely to be expe-
rienced in everyday life has also been shown
to influence judgments of various kinds, de-
cision-making strategy, and willingness to take
risks (e.g., Isen & Means, 1983; Isen, Means,
Patrick, & Nowicki, 1982; Isen & Patrick,
1983;
Isen & Shalker, 1982; Isen et aL, 1978;
Johnson & Tversky, 1983).
These findings suggest that affect may in-
fluence not only memory but also cognitive
organization and consequences of this orga-
nization. One series of studies, for example,
investigated the influence of affective state on
memory, judgment, and evaluation. These
results indicated that when people had been
Requests for reprints should be sent to Alice M. Isen,
who is now at the Department of Psychology, University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106.
given a small free gift, they were more likely
to judge their consumer
goods
more favorably;
and these improved opinions were attributed
to affect-cued accessibility of positive material,
because results of a second study indicated
that positive feelings served to cue positive
material in memory (Isen et al., 1978). In
two other series of studies it was found that
mild positive affect influenced subjects' will-
ingness to take risks (Isen & Patrick, 1983)
and their estimates of the amount of risk
present at a given time—that is, their esti-
mates of the chances of certain events occur-
ring (Johnson & Tversky, 1983). There is
growing evidence, then, that positive affect
can influence cognitive processes, possibly
including cognitive organization
itself,
through
the ideas that are brought to mind by the
affective state.
Moreover, additional work has indicated
that not only cognitive content, but the very
strategies that subjects use in solving prob-
lems,
may be influenced by the presence of
positive feelings. In one series of studies,
subjects in whom good feelings had been
induced by placing them in especially com-
fortable surroundings, complete with refresh-
ments, were found to be more likely to use
an intuitive solution, or a heuristic, in solving
two different types of problems, a physics
timer-tape problem and a relative frequency
judgment (Isen et al., 1982). In addition,
subjects in whom positive affect had been
1206
... Although overinclusive thinking has been studied for several decades, no work has been done to systematically validate a measure of overinclusive thinking. To date, researchers have been measuring overinclusive thinking with a modified categorization task (Isen & Daubman, 1984; revised by Chiu, 2015) which we refer to as the Overinclusive Thinking Categorization Task (OTCT). In this task, participants make Likert judgements of category fitness for three typical and three atypical exemplars in two categories. ...
... The Overinclusive Thinking Categorization Task (OTCT) is a modified categorization task (Isen & Daubman, 1984;revised by Chiu, 2015) that has been used recently in the literature to measure overinclusive thinking. While the COverTT has participants make binary classification decisions, the OTCT has participants rate items on a 10-point Likert scale, with anchors "Definitely Does Not Belong" to "Definitely Does Belong." ...
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... Indeed, the participant's affect has been shown to modulate conceptual and attentional breadth and attentional mechanisms more generally, such that low arousal positive affect increases cognitive breadth. For example, low arousal positive affect has been shown to increase conceptual breadth resulting in more creative and novel solutions to problems (Isen et al., 1987), more atypical word associations (Isen et al., 1985), greater flexibility and inclusiveness when assigning items to categories (Chung et al., 2022;Isen & Daubman, 1984), and increases in the use of a broad, "gist" processing style (Vanlessen et al., 2013(Vanlessen et al., , 2014. Similarly, low arousal positive affect can increase attentional breadth. ...
... Both induced and naturally occurring affect has been shown previously to influence and relate to attentional breadth (e.g., Frederickson & Branigan, 2005;Gasper & Clore, 2002), conceptual breadth (e.g., Chung et al., 2022;Isen & Daubman, 1984;Isen et al., 1985Isen et al., , 1987 and distractor suppression (e.g., Biss & Hasher, 2011;Biss et al., 2010), such that low arousal positive affect is associated with greater breadth of processing, including greater processing of irrelevant information. Because a reduced ability to ignore the irrelevant word information here would lead to greater hyper-binding, we had expected that positive affect, particularly low arousal positive affect, would result in a reduced ability to ignore the irrelevant words and, therefore, predict greater hyper-binding. ...
Hyper-binding: the surprising roles of age and affect
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When irrelevant stimuli are processed and then bound to relevant stimuli in memory, it is known as hyper-binding. Hyper-binding has been demonstrated consistently in older-aged participants, but university-aged participants do not typically show hyper-binding. This phenomenon has been attributed to older individuals having greater difficulty filtering out irrelevant information compared to younger adults. Emotions can also influence how individuals attend to and process information, and older individuals report feeling greater positive, and less negative, affect than younger adults. Low arousal positive affect is associated with greater cognitive breadth and reduced distractor suppression. Therefore, it is possible that differences in affect contribute to the differences in hyper-binding demonstrated for younger versus older adults. In four studies, we measured hyper-binding using a standard hyper-binding task and examined whether individual differences in hyper-binding could be predicted by individual differences in self-reported affect. Study 1 included an online community sample between 18 and 45 years of age. Study 2 included university undergraduate students that were tested online. Study 3 participants included university undergraduate students that were tested in the lab. Study 4 participants included an older aged sample that was tested online. Overall, there were no significant relationships between affect and hyper-binding across age samples. Surprisingly, however, significant hyper-binding was observed for all age groups and was not larger for older individuals. The results suggest that individual differences in naturally occurring affect do not meaningfully predict hyper-binding, but the prevalence of hyper-binding across all studies demonstrates it may not be unique to older adults.
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... Previous research has demonstrated that internal affective cues induce changes in the adopted cognitive processing style. Individuals in a positive mood compared to individuals in a negative mood tend to think about information in a global, inclusive Beukeboom,de Jong / Affect and Proprioceptive Cues 111 and abstract way, whereas individuals in a negative mood tune to processing information at a more specific, analytic and concrete level (Bless, 2000;Gasper & Clore, 2002;Isbell, Burns, & Haar, 2005;Isen & Daubman, 1984). External, affectively laden cues in the environment (e.g., emotional expressions of people around us) induce similar changes in the adopted processing style. ...
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Cognitive tuning accounts argue that both affective feelings and bodily feelings induce changes in information processing (N. Schwarz & G. L. Clore, 1996). This article examines how these effects of feelings are reflected in language abstraction. On the basis of previous work showing that affective cues change language abstraction, we hypothesized that proprioceptive cues (i.e., bodily feelings) associated with global processing (arm flexion) should induce more abstract language use, compared with bodily feelings associated with analytic processing (arm extension). This prediction received support in a study in which participants performed a written self-description task either while pressing their nondominant hand under the table (arm flexion), or on top of the table (arm extension), or while keeping their arm relaxed (control). Implications for interpersonal communication are discussed.
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... Taken together, in certain circumstances, a communication strategy focusing on positive and optimistic messages thus can be very successful in generating higher levels of engagement and in mobilizing potential supporters. A theoretical explanation for these findings is provided by the "broaden-andbuild model of positive emotions" (Fredrickson, 1998(Fredrickson, , 2001 which suggests that positive emotions may prompt recipients to broaden habitual patterns of thought and behavior, e.g., toward more flexible and creative thinking and action (e.g., Fredrickson and Branigan, 2005;Isen and Daubman, 1984;Isen et al., 1987). ...
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Mood and Flexibility in Categorization: A Conceptual Replication
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The present study tested the hypothesis that positive mood facilitates cognitive flexibility in categorization, i.e., positive mood enhances the ability to categorize flexibly at broad and narrow levels contingent on task requirement. The study was a conceptual replication of the 1990 work by Murray, Sujan, Hirt, and Sujan. Unlike the original study, it was carried out on the WWW with some modifications in the procedure. Participants were 29 women and 132 men whose average age was 29 yr. They were put into a positive, negative, or neutral mood using the Velten technique. Mood was measured with standard mood scales. Subjects then listed similarities or differences between two entertainment TV shows. Contrary to the prediction, participants in a positive mood did not list a higher number, more diverse, or more unusual similarities and differences between the shows, and they were not faster than participants with neutral or negative moods. It is concluded that the influence of mood on cognitive flexibility needs to be reconsidered In research, temporal aspects of categorization performance as well as a wider range of mood valences should be taken into account.
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Affect
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The term affect is used in a multitude of ways in the wellbeing literature, and this chapter identifies three diverging clusters of definitions. One considers affect to be an umbrella term, a top-down concept under which moods, emotions, feelings, and other kinds of affect are taxonomically organized. A second group of definitions holds affect to be a bottom-up phenomenon. Here, affect is taken to be a fundamental or primitive building block, a “natural kind” that is present in all other concepts referred to as affective or emotional. On this view, an emotion is not a kind of affect but contains affect as one of its constituents. The third cluster of affect definitions uses affect as a synonym for other concepts, such as moods, emotions, or feelings. The HTW uses affect as an umbrella term, and the chapter proceeds by surveying the major kinds of affect, such as temperament, mood, emotion, feeling, and evaluation. For emotions, three groups of theories are examined. They consider emotions to be basic, continuous, or constructed, respectively. Among the presented approaches, one of the basic theories, referred to as the communicative theory of emotions, appears to be the most promising. The theory offers a list of nine basic emotions, among which the “big four” of happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are the best exemplars. According to the communicative theory, basic emotions are psychological primitives and therefore cannot be separated into lower-level states that are not themselves emotions. A feeling state is part of an emotion but is not limited to emotions. In contrast to emotions, feelings are always present in a conscious mind, and they reflect what it is like to have a subjective experience on a moment-to-moment basis. A feeling informs us if we are OK or in need of tending, and it comprises four components: valence (pleasure/displeasure) tells us how good a stimulus is; quality identifies the nature of what we are feeling; intensity accounts for the importance of the feeling; and duration tells us how long a feeling is lasting. An evaluation is another kind of affect; it represents a valuation mechanism and is quite similar to a feeling in terms of functions. However, evaluations are not restricted to being consciously experienced and can be integrated into other mental processes, such as perception. A promising approach has been developed by Shizgal, and it suggests that a good-bad evaluation interacts with nonevaluative dimensions to generate a value judgment. The last part of the paper provides an account of emotional happiness and emotional interest. Emotional happiness has many different meanings, but two major conceptualizations are easily identified. One associates happiness with active goal pursuits and with the execution of plans that are progressing well. The second conceptualization links happiness with low-effort activities and with goal achievement and the fulfillment of needs. The HTW refers to happiness in this latter sense as a harmony feeling. Emotional interest is related to learning and exploring unfamiliar territory. It often occurs when we are confronted with a challenge and when skills are developed. Interest therefore belongs to a category called “opportunity feelings.” Harmony feelings differ from opportunity feelings both functionally and phenomenologically. Hence, it is unfortunate that mainstream wellbeing research tends to collapse them both into the grab-bag notion of “positive affect.”
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A Clarified Examination of the Item Wording Effect: Item Valence (Good vs. Bad) Versus Semantic Framing (I Am vs. I Am Not)
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The Item Wording Effect (IWE) in psychological testing describes how individuals respond differently to positively and negatively worded items. Previous IWE research faced challenges due to measures varying beyond item valence. This study aimed to address this problem by developing an inventory, the Positive and Negative Descriptor Inventory (PANDI), with items varying solely on valence. Semantic framing was manipulated to examine which factor (valence vs. framing) was more causal of the IWE. Using an online survey on Mechanical Turk, 336 Canadian participants responded to PANDI items in different experimental conditions. Results indicated that item valence had a bigger impact on IWE than semantic framing. PANDI-Good items in the Affirming Condition exhibited lower reliability but higher means and response variance than other groups, emphasizing the significant difference in how individuals interpret positive and negating inventory items. This study recommends using negatively worded items sparingly, and not using negating items at all.
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Two experiments investigated the selective influences of experimentally induced mood states on 156 5th graders' encoding and retrieval of affectively valent information. Exp I revealed that a happy, compared to a neutral, mood during encoding facilitated recall of positive information; a sad encoding mood disrupted recall of positive material. A happy mood during retrieval also facilitated recall of positive information, but no other selective effects of retrieval mood occurred. Exp II indicated that the negative mood of anger, like that of sadness, disrupted the encoding of positive information; unlike sadness, however, anger facilitated the encoding of negative material. Again, no selective effects of retrieval mood occurred. Findings indicate that selective encoding and retrieval may contribute to children's cognitive ability to regulate mood states as well as other aspects of social learning and development. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
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