The Role of Affect on the Search for Global and Specific Target Information

Abstract

Two experiments demonstrate that affect influences the extent to which individuals seek global versus specific target information when forming impressions. Experiment 1 relied on natural differences in individuals' moods and found that relatively happy participants were more likely than relatively unhappy ones to seek global before specific target information when forming impressions. Following an experimental mood manipulation, participants in Experiment 2 actively sought global and specific target information in an impression formation task. Overall, happy participants sought relatively more traits than behaviors, whereas sad participants sought relatively more behaviors than traits; however, these differences were significant only for participants exposed to positive trait information. These results suggest that sad participants may have been sensitive to the diagnosticity of the information they chose. The results of both experiments are consistent with the Affect–as–Information model and suggest that affect influences the types of information that individuals seek out when forming impressions.