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Beyond simple pessimism: effects of sadness and anger on social perception
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Short Title: Beyond simple pessimism
Format: Journal Article
Publication Year: n.d.
Pages: 740-752
Sources ID: 22890
Visibility: Private
Zotero Collections: Contexts of Contemplation Project
Abstract: (Show)
In keeping with cognitive appraisal models of emotion, it was hypothesized that sadness and anger would exert different influences on causal judgments. Two experiments provided initial support for this hypothesis. Sad Ss perceived situationally caused events as more likely (Experiment 1) and situational forces more responsible for an ambiguous event (Experiment 2) than angry Ss, who, in contrast, perceived events caused by humans as more likely and other people as more responsible. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 showed that the experience of these emotions, rather than their cognitive constituents, mediates these effects. The nonemotional exposure to situational or human agency information did not influence causal judgments (Experiment 3), whereas the induction of sadness and anger without explicit agency information did (Experiments 4 and 5). Discussion is focused on the influence of emotion on social judgment.
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