Happiness by Association: Breadth of Free Association Influences Affective States

Autor/inn/en	Brunye, Tad T.; Gagnon, Stephanie A.; Paczynski, Martin; Shenhav, Amitai; Mahoney, Caroline R.; Taylor, Holly A.
Titel	Happiness by Association: Breadth of Free Association Influences Affective States
Quelle	In: Cognition, 127 (2013) 1, S.93-98 (6 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0010-0277
DOI	10.1016/j.cognition.2012.11.015
Schlagwörter	Affective Behavior; Semantics; Psychological Patterns; Correlation; Cues; Prediction; Brain Hemisphere Functions; Cognitive Processes; Responses; Concept Formation + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Affective disturbance; Active behaviour; Affektive Störung; Semantik; Korrelation; Stichwort; Vorhersage; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Concept learning; Begriffsbildung
Abstract	Several studies have demonstrated that affective states influence the number of associations formed between remotely related concepts. Someone in a neutral or negative affective state might draw the association between "cold" and "hot", whereas someone in a positive affective state might spontaneously form the more distant association between "cold" and "sneeze". Could the reverse be true, that generating increasingly broad or narrow associations will put someone in a more or less positive affective state? We test this possibility by using verbal free association tasks, and asking whether the breadth of semantic associativity between cue words and generated responses might predict resulting affective states. Two experiments show that generating broader associations, regardless of their valence, changes affect; specifically, broader associations lowered negative affect and marginally increased positive affect over time. These findings carry implications for theories positing interactions between brain areas mediating associative processing and affect, and may hold promise for enhancing affect in clinical contexts. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10