In this paper, we examine whether affect influences higher level cognitive processes. We review research on the effect of emotion on interpretation, judgement, decision making, and reasoning. In all cases, we ask first whether there is evidence that emotion affects each of these processes, and second what mechanisms might underlie these effects. Our review highlights the fact that interpretive biases are primarily linked with anxiety, while more general mood-congruent effects may be seen in judgement. Risk perception is also affected by (...) negative and positive affect. Research shows complex effects of emotion on decision making and reasoning, with emotion sometimes hindering normatively correct thinking and sometimes promoting it. There are also important effects of emotion on reasoning style. We discuss key differences between the effects of incidental affect (feeling states not related to the semantic contents of the cognitive task) and integral affect (where the feeling state is caused by or linked to the contents of the cognitive task). In the conclusion, we suggest that focusing on some of the constituent mechanisms involved in interpretation, judgement, decision making and reasoning provides a way to link some of the diverse findings in the field. We also highlight important areas for future research. (shrink)

Emotions imply a revision of our beliefs inasmuch as they are triggered by a discrepancy between our expectancies and new situations. I will study the converse relation: how emotions, particularly recurrent emotions that reappear in similar situations in the long term, are incentives to revise not only our beliefs but also the order of priorities between their related desires. Understanding how affects can revise both beliefs—under their committing aspect—and the order of desires, implies seeing the dynamics of affects as interacting (...) with external dynamics and the order of priorities as a weak one. These philosophical considerations shed new light on the diversity of emotions, on their different temporalities, and on the paradox of emotional sharing. (shrink)

Stress and anxiety can both influence risk-taking in decision-making. While stress typically increases risk-taking, anxiety often leads to risk-averse choices. Few studies have examined both stress and anxiety in a single paradigm to assess risk-averse choices. We therefore set out to examine emotional decision-making under stress in socially anxious participants. In our study, individuals (N= 87) high or low in social anxiety completed an expanded variation of theBalloon Analogue Risk Task(BART). While inflating a balloon to a larger degree is rewarded, (...) a possible explosion leads to (a) a loss of money and (b) it is followed by an emotional picture (i.e., a calm vs. an angry face). To induce stress before this task, participants were told that they would have to deliver a speech. We operationalized risk-taking by the number of pumps during inflation and its functionality by the amount of monetary gain. In addition, response times were recorded as an index of decisional conflict. Without the stressor, high socially anxious compared to low socially anxious participants did not differ in any of the dependent variables. However, under stress, the low socially anxious group took more risk and earned more money, while high socially anxious individuals remained more cautious and did not change their risk-taking under social stress. Overall, high socially anxious individuals made their decisions more hesitantly compared to low socially anxious individuals. Unexpectedly, there were no main effects or interactions with the valence of the emotional faces. This data shows that stress affects socially anxious individuals differently: in low socially anxious individuals stress fosters risk-taking, whereas high socially anxious individuals did not alter their behavior and remained risk-averse. The noveleBARTis a promising research tool to examine the specific factors that influence decision-making. (shrink)