Department of Psychology.
Emotion. 2016 Sep;16(6):826-37. doi: 10.1037/emo0000188. Epub 2016 Apr 14.
Considerable research shows that positive affect improves performance on creative tasks and negative affect improves performance on analytic tasks. The present research entertained the idea that affective feelings have flexible, rather than fixed, effects on cognitive performance. Consistent with the idea that positive and negative affect signal the value of accessible processing inclinations, the influence of affective feelings on performance on analytic or creative tasks was found to be flexibly responsive to the relative accessibility of different styles of processing (i.e., heuristic vs. systematic, global vs. local). When a global processing orientation was accessible happy participants generated more creative uses for a brick (Experiment 1), successfully solved more remote associates and insight problems (Experiment 2) and displayed broader categorization (Experiment 3) than those in sad moods. When a local processing orientation was accessible this pattern reversed. When a heuristic processing style was accessible happy participants were more likely to commit the conjunction fallacy (Experiment 3) and showed less pronounced anchoring effects (Experiment 4) than sad participants. When a systematic processing style was accessible this pattern reversed. Implications of these results for relevant affect-cognition models are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record
大量研究表明，积极情绪能提高创造性任务的表现，消极情绪能提高分析性任务的表现。本研究探讨了情感感受对认知表现的影响具有灵活性，而不是固定性的观点。与积极和消极情绪信号可访问处理倾向的价值的观点一致，发现情感感受对分析或创造性任务表现的影响是灵活的，取决于不同处理风格的相对可访问性（即启发式与系统式、全局与局部）。当全局处理取向是可访问的时，快乐的参与者对砖头有更多创造性的用途（实验 1），成功解决了更多的远程联想和顿悟问题（实验 2），表现出更广泛的分类（实验 3），而悲伤情绪的参与者则没有。当局部处理取向是可访问的时，这种模式就会反转。当启发式处理风格是可访问的时，快乐的参与者更有可能犯合取谬误（实验 3），并且表现出的锚定效应不那么明显（实验 4），而悲伤的参与者则不是。当系统处理风格是可访问的时，这种模式就会反转。这些结果对相关的情感认知模型的影响进行了讨论。
