Arousal and evaluative extremity in social judgments: A dynamic complexity model

Paulhus, Delroy L.; Lim, David T. K.

doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420240107

Cited by 98 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This hypothesis elaborates on the theory that because arousal reduces processing capacity, aroused individuals tend to selectively process important cues at the expense of less important ones (Easterbrook, 1959). Because the primary dimension of social perception is evaluative (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957), selective processing focusing on this dimension at the expense of nonevaluative dimensions will polarize judgments (Paulhus & Lim, 1994). In a study of people's evaluation of famous figures and social acquaintances, Paulhus and Lim found that arousal did result in simpler perceptions and that these simpler perceptions seemed to lead to more polarized judgments.…”

Section: Arousal and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The dynamic complexity hypothesis (Paulhus & Lim, 1994) states that arousal polarizes evaluative judgments by reducing the complexity of perceptions about a target. This hypothesis elaborates on the theory that because arousal reduces processing capacity, aroused individuals tend to selectively process important cues at the expense of less important ones (Easterbrook, 1959).…”

Section: Arousal and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to the dynamic complexity hypothesis (Paulhus & Lim, 1994), high arousal may polarize subsequent ad evaluations if consumers process a simpler representation of the ad and if the primary component of the simplified representation is evaluative. Participants' representations of the target ad were assessed through cognitive responses.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

When Arousal Influences Ad Evaluation and Valence Does Not (and Vice Versa)

2001

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research examines, across 2 studies, the interplay between the valence and arousal components of affective states and the affective tone of a target ad. In the first study, music was used to induce a pleasant or unpleasant mood, while controlling for arousal. Participants were subsequently exposed to an ad that either had a positive-affective tone or was ambiguous in its affective tone. As predicted, the valence of the affective state colored the evaluation of the ad in a mood-congruent direction, but this coloring effect occurred only when the ad had an ambiguous-affective tone. In the second study, the target ad had a clear positive or negative affective tone, and the valence and arousal dimensions of the mood state were manipulated independently. As predicted, the arousal dimension, but not the valence dimension, influenced ad evaluation. Ad evaluations were more polarized in the direction of the ad's affective tone under high arousal than under low arousal. This effect was more pronounced for self-referent evaluations (e.g., "I like the ad") than for object-referent evaluations (e.g., "The ad is good"), favoring an attributional explanation-the excitation transfer hypothesis-over an attention-narrowing explanation-the dynamic complexity hypothesis. Taken together, the results of the 2 studies stress the important contingency of the affective tone of the ad, when examining the effects of the valence and arousal dimensions of a person's affective state on ad evaluation. The results also provide additional insights into how and when affect serves as information in judgment processes.The sources of affect can be diverse. In ad exposure settings, one source of affect is the consumer's preexisting mood state at the time of exposure. A second source lies in the affective tone of the ad itself (e.g., humorous or fear-inducing). 1 The interplay between the consumer's affective state and the affective content of the ad can have intricate effects on judgments. The purpose of this research is to document the nature of this interplay, formalize its main contingencies, and explore underlying processes.We suggest that to examine this interplay, it is useful to decompose consumers' affective states along their two primary dimensions (Havlena & Holbrook, 1986;Mehrabian & Russell, 1974): valence (pleasant or unpleasant) and arousal (high or low). We propose that each of these two components of consumers' affective states interacts differently with the affective tone of a target ad. Prior research has suggested that the valence component has the effect of "coloring" people's judgments in a mood-congruent direction (e.g., Forgas, 1995;Mayer, Gashke, Braverman, & Evans, 1992). Ceteris paribus, the target ad should be evaluated more favorably when the affective state is pleasant than when it is unpleasant (e.g., JOURNAL OF CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY, 11(1), 43-55 Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Request for reprints should be sent to Michel Tuan Pham, 515 Uris Hall, Graduate School of Business, Columbia Univ...

show abstract

Section: Arousal and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Arousal and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

When Arousal Influences Ad Evaluation and Valence Does Not (and Vice Versa)

2001

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Arousal, by contrast, affects refl ective processing in a nonlinear fashion resembling the YerkesDodson Law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908 )-intermediate levels of arousal facilitate the operation of the refl ective system. Evidence exists that high levels of arousal reduce complexity in social judgments (Baron, 2000 ;Lambert et al, 2003 ;Paulhus & Lim, 1994 ), whereas low arousal, characteristic in a state of fatigue, for example, is also associated with lowered capacity to engage in refl ective processing. Important and ubiquitous cognitive phenomena rely upon the refl ective system's ability to assign truth values to relations between concepts, an example of which is negation.…”

Section: The Refl Ective Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflection and Impulse as Determinants of Human Behavior

Krishna

Strack

2017

Knowledge and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…According to the cognitive-complexity hypothesis (Paulhus & Lim, 1994), under high arousal, people's representations of target objects become simpler. As a result, the evaluative dimension becomes relatively more salient, causing more polarized judgments.…”

Section: Beyond Simple Valence Congruencymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature and Role of Affect in Consumer Behavior

Cohen

Pham

Andrade

Handbook of Consumer Psychology

233

287

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

research in consumer behavior dealing with affect has exploded, making it one of the field's central research topics. Within psychology more generally, Schimmack and Crites (2005) located 923 references to affect between 1960 and 1980 and 4,170 between 1980 and 2000. Since research on affect has become more specialized, this chapter will concentrate on the various ways affect influences judgment and choice rather than on broader and historical perspectives.These will include the role of affect in information retrieval, differential processing of affectively colored information (including the role of affect in strengthening mental associations and memory consolidation), how and when affect provides information that influences judgments and decisions, and the motivational role of affect in guiding behavior and signaling the need for changes in vigilance, intensity, and direction. We begin, however, with some essential definitions. THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF AFFECT On Affect: Feelings, Emotions, and Moods What Affect MeansThere is still some carryover from the use of the term "affect" to also refer to what is, in essence, the evaluative aspect of attitudes. This stems from the classic tri-partite depiction of attitudes: cognitive, affective, and conative (see Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) and a failure to adequately differentiate between evaluative measures (e.g., favorable/unfavorable) and antecedent or subsequent processes, which might be feeling-based. Consistent with most recent 3 scholarly discussions, we reserve the term "affect" to describe an internal feeling state. One's explicit or implicit "liking" for some object, person, or position is viewed as an evaluative judgment rather than an internal feeling state. As Russell and Carroll (1999a) put it:"By affect, we have in mind genuine subjective feelings and moods (as when someone says, 'I'm feeling sad'), rather than thoughts about specific objects or events (as when someone calmly says, 'The crusades were a sad chapter in human history')." This chapter maintains the separation of affect as a feeling state that is distinct from either liking or purely descriptive cognition. So when we use the term "affect" to describe stimuli, internal and overt responses, it is only in relation to evoked feeling states. Imagine, in contrast, an advertisement whose words or images connote a happy (i.e., successful) outcome.Affective processes cannot merely be assumed. Alternative explanations (e.g., the advertised product seems likely to produce favorable outcomes) for so-called "affective" influences on subsequent evaluations and behavior must be ruled out before implicating affect. These include semantically associated changes in object meaning or construct accessibility.This definition also raises both philosophical and empirical questions about whether such a feeling state must be consciously experienced or whether we can be unaware that we are experiencing affect. Research where subliminally presented smiling or frowning faces were used to prime affect (outside of awarenes...

show abstract

Arousal and evaluative extremity in social judgments: A dynamic complexity model

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 98 publications

References 27 publications

When Arousal Influences Ad Evaluation and Valence Does Not (and Vice Versa)

When Arousal Influences Ad Evaluation and Valence Does Not (and Vice Versa)

Reflection and Impulse as Determinants of Human Behavior

The Nature and Role of Affect in Consumer Behavior

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About