Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2024 Mar;82:101910. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2023.101910. Epub 2023 Sep 9.
Understanding how individuals integrate new information to form beliefs under changing emotional conditions is crucial to describing decision-making processes. Previous research suggests that although most people demonstrate bias toward optimistic appraisals of new information when updating beliefs, individuals with dysphoric psychiatric conditions (e.g., major depression) do not demonstrate this same bias. Despite these findings, limited research has investigated the relationship between affective states and belief updating processes.
We induced neutral and sad moods in participants and had them complete a belief-updating paradigm by estimating the likelihood of negative future events happening to them, viewing the actual likelihood, and then re-estimating their perceived likelihood.
We observed that individuals updated their beliefs more after receiving desirable information relative to undesirable information under neutral conditions. Further, we found that individuals did not demonstrate unrealistic optimism under negative affective conditions.
This study incorporated a population of university students under laboratory conditions and would benefit from replication and extension in clinical populations and naturalistic settings.
These findings suggest that momentary fluctuations in mood affect how individuals integrate information to form beliefs.
了解个体如何在情绪变化的情况下整合新信息形成信念，对于描述决策过程至关重要。先前的研究表明，尽管大多数人在更新信念时表现出对新信息乐观评估的偏见，但患有心境障碍（如重度抑郁症）的个体则没有表现出这种偏见。尽管有这些发现，但关于情感状态和信念更新过程之间的关系的研究有限。
我们在参与者中诱发中性和悲伤的情绪，并让他们通过估计负面未来事件发生在自己身上的可能性、查看实际可能性，然后重新估计自己的感知可能性来完成信念更新范式。
我们观察到，在中性条件下，个体在接收到理想信息后比接收到不理想信息后更能更新他们的信念。此外，我们发现个体在负面情绪条件下没有表现出不切实际的乐观主义。
本研究纳入了实验室环境下的大学生群体，在临床群体和自然环境中进行复制和扩展将对其有益。
这些发现表明，情绪的短暂波动会影响个体如何整合信息形成信念。
