Centre for Mental Health Research and Treatment, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.
Cogn Emot. 2022 Jun;36(4):705-712. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2021.2023108. Epub 2022 Jan 3.
Theories of affective influences on cognition posit that negative mood may increase cognitive load, causing a decrement in task performance (Seibert & Ellis, [1991]. Irrelevant thoughts, emotional mood states, and cognitive task performance. , (5), 507-513), or cause a shift to more analytic thinking, which benefits tasks requiring attention to detail (Schwarz & Clore, [1983]. Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. , (3), 513-523). We previously reported that individuals who are higher in the trait of emotional reactivity performed better on an inhibitory task with increasing negative mood whereas low-reactive individuals showed the converse pattern (Gabel & McAuley, [2018]. Does mood help or hinder executive functions? Reactivity may be the key. , , 94-99; [2020]. React to act: Negative mood, response inhibition, and the moderating role of emotional reactivity. , (6), 862-869). Because high-reactive individuals are more accustomed to negative affect (Nock et al., [2008]. The emotion reactivity scale: Development, evaluation, and relation to self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. , (2), 107-116), we speculated that negative mood engendered analytic thinking but without a task-incongruent increase in cognitive load - thereby facilitating performance. Here, we induced a heuristic or analytic approach to information processing prior to performance of an inhibitory task and expected different results pending the thinking style induced. In the heuristic condition, increasing negative mood was associated with better performance for high-reactive participants but not their low-reactive counterparts. In the analytic condition, increasing negative mood was associated with better performance irrespective of emotional reactivity. Our results are consistent with the notion that negative mood engenders analytic thinking which may benefit response inhibition provided it does not increase task-incongruent cognitive load.
情感对认知的影响理论认为，消极情绪可能会增加认知负荷，从而降低任务表现（Seibert 和 Ellis，[1991]。无关思想、情绪状态和认知任务表现。，（5），507-513），或者导致更分析性的思维，这有利于需要注意细节的任务（Schwarz 和 Clore，[1983]。情绪、错误归因和幸福感判断：情感状态的信息和指导功能。，（3），513-523）。我们之前报告说，在情绪反应特质上得分较高的个体在消极情绪增加时，在抑制任务上表现更好，而反应较低的个体则表现出相反的模式（Gabel 和 McAuley，[2018]。情绪是帮助还是阻碍执行功能？反应可能是关键。，，94-99；[2020]。React to act：Negative mood，response inhibition，and the moderating role of emotional reactivity。，（6），862-869）。因为高反应性个体更容易受到消极情绪的影响（Nock 等人，[2008]。情绪反应量表：发展、评估和与自我伤害思维和行为的关系。，（2），107-116），我们推测消极情绪引发了分析性思维，但没有增加与任务不一致的认知负荷-从而促进了表现。在这里，我们在进行抑制任务之前诱导了一种启发式或分析性的信息处理方法，并根据所诱导的思维方式期待不同的结果。在启发式条件下，对于高反应性参与者来说，随着负面情绪的增加，表现会更好，而对于低反应性参与者来说则不然。在分析条件下，随着负面情绪的增加，表现会更好，而与情绪反应无关。我们的结果与以下观点一致，即消极情绪引发了分析性思维，这种思维可能有利于反应抑制，只要它不会增加与任务不一致的认知负荷。
