Should persuasion be affective or cognitive? The moderating effects of need for affect and need for cognition

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that need for affect and need for cognition influence receptivity to affect- and cognition-based persuasive messages. Experiment 1 found that an affective message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals high in need for affect and low in need for cognition, whereas a cognitive message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals low in need for affect and high in need for cognition. Experiment 2 found that individual differences in need for affect influenced receptivity to an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition influenced receptivity to a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Experiment 3 found that individual differences in need for affect were associated with increased recognition of information from an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition were associated with increased recognition of information from a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Overall, the studies point to the importance of individual differences in need for affect and need for cognition in understanding how individuals respond to different types of persuasive messages.     

Individual performance based on cognitive experimental measurements? The case of inhibition of return

Inhibition of Return (IOR) is a mechanism whereby the attentional system favors novel locations by inhibiting already scanned ones. In spatial attention tasks, it commonly occurs when the interval between cue onset and target onset is longer than 300 ms. The positive difference between reactions in the valid condition and those in the invalid one shows that responses to target stimuli are slower following a valid cue than responses to target stimuli following an invalid cue. IOR is a very robust phenomenon at the group mean level; however, this study demonstrates that its standard error of measurement is extremely high, which seriously challenges any attempt to interpret an individual score as representing the characteristics of a subject's attention system. Furthermore, this reliability problem might diminish the likelihood of finding differences between groups and conditions. The study shows that these problems may be partially corrected by employing the back-to-center paradigm.     

Autism: cognitive deficit or cognitive style?

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by impaired social and communicative development, and restricted interests and activities. This article will argue that we can discover more about developmental disorders such as autism through demonstrations of task success than through examples of task failure. Even in exploring and explaining what people with autism find difficult, such as social interaction, demonstration of competence on contrasting tasks has been crucial to defining the nature of the specific deficit. Deficit accounts of autism cannot explain, however, the assets seen in this disorder; for example, savant skills in maths, music and drawing, and islets of ability in visuospatial tests and rote memory. An alternative account, reviewed here, suggests that autism is characterized by a cognitive style biased towards local rather than global information processing – termed ‘weak central coherence’. Evidence that weak coherence might also characterize the relatives of people with autism, and form part of the extended phenotype of this largely genetic disorder, is discussed. This review concludes by considering some outstanding questions concerning the specific cognitive mechanism for coherence and the neural basis of individual differences in this aspect of information processing.     

Preference and similarity: affective and cognitive judgement?

This study is a test of some implications of the distinction between cognitive and affective processes proposed by Zajonc (1980), applied to preference and similarity judgements. Preference and similarity data were obtained for male and female subjects judging male and female cinema actors. Preference judgements were assumed to be an example of primarily affective judgement, similarity was assumed to be mainly cognitive. It was furthermore assumed that men when judging women and women judging men should be more affectively involved than the opposite cases. It was predicted (a) that making preference judgements would be more confident, (b) that such judgements would be more stable, (c) that preference judgements would show a more simple structure than similarity judgements, and (d) that the difference between similarities and preferences with regard to the level of complexity indicated by the ratings should be especially large with large affective involvement. In support of Zajonc's model, preference judgements were given with more confidence by the subjects and they were more stable over time. There was a tendency for similarity spaces to be more complex for affectively involved subjects while the opposite occurred for preference ratings. Women seemed to react more negatively to the similarity task than men did.     

The bilateral effect: callosal inhibition or intrahemispheric competition?

The magnification of visual field asymmetry observed with bilateral compared to unilateral tachistoscopic presentation of homologous stimuli (bilateral effect) can be explained by two hypothetical processes: homologous activation with subsequent inhibition of callosal information transfer or intrahemispheric competition for processing resources. A lexical decision task with unilateral and bilateral stimulation and response with the right or left hand was used in an attempt to decide between these hypotheses. Analysis of response time data revealed a bilateral effect, superimposed on a right visual field advantage, and no interaction between visual field and response hand. Results are consistent with the hypothesis of intrahemispheric competition in the left hemisphere.     

Accounting for cognitive aging: context processing, inhibition or processing speed?

Age-related deficits in context processing were examined in relationship to two predominant theories of cognitive aging (the Inhibitory Deficit and Processing Speed Models). Older and younger adults completed a measure of context processing (AX Continuous Performance Test (CPT) task) as well as a computerized battery of inhibitory tasks: Stroop, garden path sentences, go no-go, and the stop-signal paradigm. Participants also completed a simple processing speed task. After controlling for baseline differences in processing speed, age effects were detected on the AX-CPT. Smaller, but significant age effects were noted on the Stroop and stop-signal tasks, but no significant age effects were found on the garden path sentence and go no-go tasks. Intertask correlations were weak, providing little evidence for a homogenous or uniform construct of inhibition. The sensitivity of the AX-CPT to cognitive aging is discussed in the context of existing theories of cognitive aging. The authors suggest that deficits in context processing and utilization may underlie cognitive aging phenomena.     

Does cognitive science show belief in god to be irrational? The epistemic consequences of the cognitive science of religion

The last 15 years or so has seen the development of a fascinating new area of cognitive science: the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Scientists in this field aim to explain religious beliefs and various other religious human activities by appeal to basic cognitive structures that all humans possess. The CSR scientific theories raise an interesting philosophical question: do they somehow show that religious belief, more specifically belief in a god of some kind, is irrational? In this paper I investigate this question and argue that CSR does not show that belief in god is irrational.     

Emotional devaluation of distracting patterns and faces: a consequence of attentional inhibition during visual search?

Visual search has been studied extensively, yet little is known about how its constituent processes affect subsequent emotional evaluation of searched-for and searched-through items. In 3 experiments, the authors asked observers to locate a colored pattern or tinted face in an array of other patterns or faces. Shortly thereafter, either the target or a distractor was rated on an emotional scale (patterns, cheerfulness; faces, trustworthiness). In general, distractors were rated more negatively than targets. Moreover, distractors presented near the target during search were rated significantly more negatively than those presented far from the target. Target-distractor proximity affected distractor ratings following both simple-feature and difficult-conjunction search, even when items appeared at different locations during evaluation than during search and when faces previously tinted during search were presented in grayscale at evaluation. An attentional inhibition account is offered to explain these effects of attention on emotional evaluation.     

The two-word stage: Motivated by linguistic or cognitive constraints?

Child development researchers often discuss a "two-word" stage during language acquisition. However, there is still debate over whether the existence of this stage reflects primarily cognitive or linguistic constraints. Analyses of longitudinal data from two Deaf children, Mei and Cal, not exposed to an accessible first language (American Sign Language - ASL) until the age of 6 years, suggest that a linguistic constraint is observed when cognition is relatively spared. These older children acquiring a first language after delayed exposure exhibit aspects of a two-word stage of language development. Results from intelligence assessments, achievement tests, drawing tasks, and qualitative cognitive analyses show that Mei and Cal are at least of average intelligence and ability. However, results from language analyses clearly show differences from both age peers and younger native signers in the early two-word stage, providing new insights into the nature of this phase of language development.     

The face inhibition effect: Social contrast or motor competition?

This research examined the relative importance of encoding and retrieval contexts to the demonstration of concreteness effects in memory. Predictions from relational-distinctive and dual-code positions were evaluated. In the first two experiments, concreteness and recall task (free recall or cued recall) were manipulated following a relational semantic orienting task. The results showed an interaction between concreteness and recall type only when distinctive information could be accessed both within and between pairs. The third experiment showed that concreteness effects appeared under a relational, non-semantic orienting task. In the fourth experiment, we reexamined the magnitude of the concreteness effect following semantic versus non-semantic tasks and relational versus item-specific processing. Overall, the findings were inconsistent with both dual code theory and distinctiverelational view accounts of concreteness effects. An alternative "bidirectionality hypothesis" is suggested.     

Neuronal representations of cognitive state: reward or attention?

The effects of spatial or featural attention on the activity of neurons have been studied in many experiments that have used a variety of neurophysiological approaches. Other experiments have examined how expectations about reward are represented in neuronal activity in various brain regions. Although attention and reward are distinct concepts, I argue here that many neurophysiological experiments on attention and reward do not permit a clean dissociation between the two. This problem arises in part because reward contingencies are the only parameter manipulated in any of these experiments. I describe how attention and reward expectations have been confounded, giving rise to uncertainty about how signals related to attention and reward are distributed in the brain.     

Failures of cognitive control or attention? The case of stop-signal deficits in schizophrenia

We used Bayesian cognitive modelling to identify the underlying causes of apparent inhibitory deficits in the stop-signal paradigm. The analysis was applied to stop-signal data reported by Badcock et al. (Psychological Medicine 32: 87-297, 2002) and Hughes et al. (Biological Psychology 89: 220-231, 2012), where schizophrenia patients and control participants made rapid choice responses, but on some trials were signalled to stop their ongoing response. Previous research has assumed an inhibitory deficit in schizophrenia, because estimates of the mean time taken to react to the stop signal are longer in patients than controls. We showed that these longer estimates are partly due to failing to react to the stop signal (“trigger failures”) and partly due to a slower initiation of inhibition, implicating a failure of attention rather than a deficit in the inhibitory process itself. Correlations between the probability of trigger failures and event-related potentials reported by Hughes et al. are interpreted as supporting the attentional account of inhibitory deficits. Our results, and those of Matzke et al. (2016), who report that controls also display a substantial although lower trigger-failure rate, indicate that attentional factors need to be taken into account when interpreting results from the stop-signal paradigm.     

The sex difference in rotary pursuit performance: aptitude or inhibition?

This study examined the hypothesis that male dominance in the acquisition and performance of rotary pursuit skill reflects a lower male proclivity for the generation and accumulation of reactive inhibition rather than some innately superior ability to profit from practice. On this hypothesis, the magnitude of male dominance should decline as the length of the intertrial interval increases. The experimental sample consisted of 120 Caucasian subjects (60 of each sex) who were given sixty 30-sec trials on rotary pursuit with intertrial intervals ranging from 0 to 40 sec. The principal finding was that the magnitude of the sex difference depended significantly upon the length of the intertrial interval, as hypothesized. When the interval was 10 sec or longer, performance levels of the sexes were essentially equal. The sex variance was reduced to insignificance even on the first trial when allowance was made for the inhibitory effect of practice. Thus, male dominance in rotary pursuit skill appears to be a procedural effect mediated by and inhibitory mechanism rather than a consequence of differential endowments of learning ability.     

Is affective material in attitudes more accessible than cognitive material? The moderating role of attitude basis

Verplanken, Hofstee, and Janssen (1998) found that the affective component of attitude is accessed more readily than the cognitive. Three studies further examined these findings in the light of two competing explanations: affective primacy, which states that emotional material is inherently more accessible than cognitive; and evaluative primacy, which states that emotional material is more accessible only if it is inherently more evaluative or supports the overall evaluative basis of attitude. Study 1 measured the accessibility of cognitive and affective traits while equalizing the evaluative nature of these traits. This study found a speed advantage for affective traits, but the attitude objects in this study turned out to be mainly affectively based. Studies 2 and 3, using a mixture of affectively and cognitively based objects, found that the speed advantage for affective terms was only found among affectively based objects; Study 3 also found a speed advantage for cognitive terms among cognitively based objects, and additionally found that individual differences in attitude basis explained part of this interaction. Collectively, these studies show that while affective material may be accessed more quickly than cognitive, this is most true when overall evaluation is based on affect rather than cognition. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceptual and motor inhibition of return: components or flavors?

The most common evidence for inhibition of return (IOR) is the robust finding of increased response times to targets that appear at previously cued locations following a cue?Ctarget interval exceeding ~300?ms. In a variation on this paradigm, Abrams and Dobkin (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20:467?C477, 1994b) observed that IOR was greater when measured with a saccadic response to a peripheral target than with that to a central arrow, leading to the conclusion that saccadic responses to peripheral targets comprise motoric and perceptual components (the two-components theory for saccadic IOR), whereas saccadic responses to a central target comprise a single motoric component. In contrast, Taylor and Klein (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 26:1639?C1656, 2000) discovered that IOR for saccadic responses was equivalent for central and peripheral targets, suggesting a single motoric effect under these conditions. Rooted in methodological differences between the studies, three possible explanations for this discrepancy can be found in the literature. Here, we demonstrate that the empirical discrepancy is rooted in the following methodological difference: Whereas Abrams and Dobkin (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20:467?C477, 1994b) administered central arrow and peripheral onset targets in separate blocks, Taylor and Klein (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 26:1639?C1656, 2000) randomly intermixed these stimuli in a single block. Our results demonstrate that (1) blocking central arrow targets fosters a spatial attentional control setting that allows for the long-lasting IOR normally generated by irrelevant peripheral cues to be filtered and (2) repeated sensory stimulation has no direct effect on the magnitude of IOR measured by saccadic responses to targets presented about 1?s after a peripheral cue.     

Longer-term consequences of anger expression in negotiation: Retaliation or spillover?

Negotiators often concede to angry partners. But what happens when they meet again? According to the spillover hypothesis, negotiators demand less from previously angry partners because they perceive them as tough. According to the retaliation hypothesis, negotiators demand more from previously angry partners because of negative impressions and a desire to get even. Experiment 1 showed that participants demanded less in later negotiations when their partner in a previous negotiation had expressed anger (rather than no emotion) and the later negotiation was with the same (rather than a different) partner. Consistent with the spillover hypothesis, this effect was mediated by inferences regarding the partner’s toughness. Experiment 2 showed that apologies reduce the negative effects of anger on impressions and desire for future interaction. Behavioral reactions were moderated by social value orientation: extending the established might/morality effect, prosocial participants responded cooperatively to an apology, whereas proselfs responded competitively.     

Why worry? The cognitive function of anxiety

The phenomenon of worry is considered to arise from cognitive processes involved in anxiety, that serve to maintain high levels of vigilance for personal danger. Rather than rely on self-report alone, the research described here draws on information processing methodology, to investigate this hypothesized cognitive function. Evidence is summarized to show that anxious subjects selectively attend to threatening information, and interpret ambiguous events in a relatively threatening way. However, the evidence on memory suggests that although such information may be easily activated, it is not necessarily more accessible. The allocation of attentional priority to threatening information is seen as a characteristic of anxious (rather than depressed) mood, while the ease with which this processing mode is adopted may underlie trait anxiety and vulnerability to anxiety disorders.     

The integration of psychotherapy: Goal or utopia?

Both researchers and therapists stress the importance of integrating different forms of psychotherapy. Integration may be achieved in three ways. Supporters of the “empirical strategy” believe that more research is the solution. Followers of the “conceptual strategy” try to theorize on psychotherapy using psychological and sociological concepts. Other researchers see a “linguistic strategy” as the way to achieving a better understanding of psychotherapy. Whether any of these strategies will enable us to increase our insight into psychotherapy is questionable. All focus on technical aspects, that is, on the means to achieve effects. Yet, therapeutic effects cannot be understood unless they are interconnected with diagnostics. This paper argues that an integrated theory should be developed which includes diagnostics and treatment and which is supported by a theory on psychological (dys)functioning.     

The state of boredom: Frustrating or depressing?

Boredom is a prevalent emotion with potential negative consequences. Previous research has associated boredom with outcomes indicating both high and low levels of arousal and activation. In the present study we propose that the situational context is an important factor that may determine whether boredom relates to high versus low arousal/activation reactions. In a correlational (N?=?443) and an experimental study (N?=?120) we focused on the situational factor (perceived) task autonomy, and examined whether it explains when boredom is associated with high versus low arousal affective reactions (i.e., frustration versus depressed affect). Results of both studies indicate that when task autonomy is low, state boredom relates to more frustration than when task autonomy is high. In contrast, some support (i.e., Study 1 only) was found suggesting that when task autonomy is high, state boredom relates to more depressed affect than when task autonomy is low. These findings imply that careful attention is needed for tasks that are relatively boring. In order to reduce frustration caused by such tasks, substantial autonomy should be provided, while monitoring that this does not result in increased depressed affect.