The broaden‐and‐build theory (CitationFredrickson, 1998, Citation2001) hypothesises that positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought‐action repertoires. Two experiments with 104 college students tested these hypotheses. In each, participants viewed a film that elicited (a) amusement, (b) contentment, (c) neutrality, (d) anger, or (e) anxiety. Scope of attention was assessed using a global‐local visual processing task (Experiment 1) and thought‐action repertoires were assessed using a Twenty Statements Test (Experiment 2). Compared to a neutral state, positive emotions broadened the scope (...) of attention in Experiment 1 and thought‐action repertoires in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrowed thought‐action repertoires. Implications for promoting emotional well‐being and physical health are discussed. (shrink)

In intuitions concerning semantic coherence participants are able to discriminate above chance whether a word triad has a common remote associate or not . These intuitions are driven by increased fluency in processing coherent triads compared to incoherent triads, which in turn triggers a brief and short positive affect. The present work investigates which of these internal cues, fluency or positive affect, is the actual cue underlying coherence intuitions. In Experiment 1, participants liked coherent word triads more than incoherent triads, (...) but did not rate them as being more fluent in processing. In Experiment 2, participants could intuitively detect coherence when they misattributed fluency to an external source, but lost this intuitive ability when they misattributed affect. It is concluded that the coherence-induced fluency by itself is not consciously experienced and not used in the coherence intuitions, but the fluency-triggered affective consequences. (shrink)

The broaden‐and‐build theory (CitationFredrickson, 1998, Citation2001) hypothesises that positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought‐action repertoires. Two experiments with 104 college students tested these hypotheses. In each, participants viewed a film that elicited (a) amusement, (b) contentment, (c) neutrality, (d) anger, or (e) anxiety. Scope of attention was assessed using a global‐local visual processing task (Experiment 1) and thought‐action repertoires were assessed using a Twenty Statements Test (Experiment 2). Compared to a neutral state, positive emotions broadened the scope (...) of attention in Experiment 1 and thought‐action repertoires in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrowed thought‐action repertoires. Implications for promoting emotional well‐being and physical health are discussed. (shrink)