Psychology Faculty Work
Title
Being Bad Isn't Always Good: Affective Context Moderates the Attention Bias Toward Negative Information
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2006
Publication Title
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Volume Number
90
Issue Number
2
DOI
10.1037/0022-3514.90.2.210
Abstract
Research has demonstrated that people automatically devote more attention to negative information than to positive information. The authors conducted 3 experiments to test whether this bias is attenuated by a person's affective context. Specifically, the authors primed participants with positive and negative information using traditional (e.g., subliminal semantic priming) and nontraditional (e.g., social interactions) means and measured the amount of attention they allocated to positive and negative information. With both event-related brain potentials (Experiment 1) and the Stroop task (Experiments 2 and 3), results suggest that the attention bias to negative information is attenuated or eliminated when positive constructs are made accessible. The implications of this result for other biases to negative information and for the self-reinforcing nature of emotional disorders are discussed.
ISSN
0022-3514
First Page
210
Last Page
220
Recommended Citation
Smith, N. Kyle; Larsen, J.T.; Chartrand, T.L.; Cacioppo, J.T.; Katafiasz, H.A.; and Moran, K.E., "Being Bad Isn't Always Good: Affective Context Moderates the Attention Bias Toward Negative Information" (2006). Psychology Faculty Work. 17.
https://digitalcommons.owu.edu/psyc_pubs/17
Link Out URL
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.2.210