The Scope of Our Affective Influences: When and How Naturally Occurring Positive,Negative,and Neutral Affects Alter Judgment

To determine how naturally arising affect alters judgment,we examined whether (a) affective states exert a specific,rather than a general,influence on valenced-specific judgments; (b) neutral affect is associated with increased neutral judgments,independent of positive,negative,and ambivalent affects,and whether neutral judgments are associated with behavioral disengagement; and (c) the informational value of naturally arising states may be difficult to alter via salience and relevance manipulations. the results support several conclusions: (a) affective states exerted a judgment-specific effect—positive affect was most strongly associated with positive judgments,negative affect with negative judgments,and neutral affect with neutral judgments. (b) neutral affect influenced judgments,taking into account positive,negative,and ambivalent affects; and neutral judgments predicted behavioral disengagement. (c) with the exception of negative affect,naturally arising affective states typically influenced judgments regardless of their salience and relevance. © 2016,© 2016 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.