Title
Affective incoherence: when affective concepts and embodied reactions clash
PubMed ID
18361672
UMMS Affiliation
Center for Health Policy and Research
Date
3-26-2008
Document Type
Article
Subjects
*Affect; Attention; Comprehension; *Concept Formation; *Conflict (Psychology); Cues; Culture; Female; Humans; Male; Memory, Short-Term; *Mental Recall; Motivation; *Reading; Retention (Psychology)
Disciplines
Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences
Abstract
In five studies, the authors examined the effects on cognitive performance of coherence and incoherence between conceptual and experiential sources of affective information. The studies crossed the priming of happy and sad concepts with affective experiences. In different experiments, these included approach or avoidance actions, happy or sad feelings, and happy or sad expressive behaviors. In all studies, coherence between affective concepts and affective experiences led to better recall of a story than did affective incoherence. The authors suggest that the experience of such experiential affective cues serves as evidence of the appropriateness of affective concepts that come to mind. The results suggest that affective coherence has epistemic benefits and that incoherence is costly in terms of cognitive performance.
Rights and Permissions
Citation: J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008 Apr;94(4):560-78. Link to article on publisher's site
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