Task Difficulty And Cognitive Style As Moderators Of The Relationship Between Affect Of Diverse Motivational Intensity And Attentional Flexibility

Beyond being a fertile research topic in psychology, the interaction of cognitionand affect is a familiar aspect of human experience. People often speak of hownegative feelings can produce‘‘tunnel vision’’, or of how optimists see the worldthrough ‘‘rose-coloured lenses’’. The interaction of cognition and affect is animportant aspect in psychology now. And a central question in the interaction is theeffect of affect states on attentional processing. Over twenty years of research haveexamined the cognitive consequences of affect states, and suggested that positiveaffect leads to a broadening of cognition (see review by Fredrickson,2001), increasesattentional flexibility (Compton,2000; Derryberry&Reed,2001). Many studies haveshowed that negative affect and traits have been linked to narrowed attentional scope(Basso, Schefft, Ris,&Dember,1996; Derryberry&Tucker,1994).Attentional flexibility is defined as the ability to adaptably shift focus amongcognitive operations using executive control. Research has found that positive affectincreases attentional flexibility, while negative affect discreases attentional flexibility.However, Gable&Harmon-Jones recently mentioned the motivational dimensionalmodel of affect which it suggest that affect high in motivation narrows attentionalfocus, whereas affect low in motivation broadens attentional focus. Thus, whether isor not the relation between affect and attentional flexibility is in accord with themotivational dimensional model of affect. To our knowledge, the influence of affectof diverse motivational intensity on attentional flexibility is still not well understood,and also the factors that modulate the relation between affect of diverse motivationalintensity and attentional flexibility are not well understood. Therefore, study1investigated the influence of affect of diverse motivational intensity on attentional flexibility in four experiments. Study2investigated the influence of task difficulty onthe relation between the affect of diverse motivational intensity and attentionalflexibility. Study3investigated the influence of cognitive style on the relationbetween the affect of diverse motivational intensity and attentional flexibility. In ourexperiments, all participants recruited for these studies were healthy college students.Stimulus materials were emotional films and images, and the attentional task is covertattentional orienting task. The results were as follows.1. Participants showed less attentional flexibility after viewinghigh-approach-motivating positive stimuli than after viewinglow-approach-motivating positive stimuli (experiment1) or neutral stimuli(experiment2). Participants showed more attentional flexibility after viewinglow-avoidance-motivating negative stimuli than after viewing high-avoidance-motivating positive stimuli (experiment3) or neutral stimuli (experiment4).2. There was a significant interaction of the affect of diverse motivational intensityand task difficulty on attentional flexibility. Specifically, Participants showed lessattentional flexibility after viewing high-approach-motivating positive stimuli thanafter viewing neutral stimuli on easy trials, whereas there is no significant differenceon difficulty task (experiment5). Participants showed more attentional flexibility afterviewing low-avoidance-motivating negative stimuli than after viewing neutral stimulion easy trials, whereas there is no significant difference on difficulty task (experiment6). The results indicated that the affect of diverse motivational intensity have aninfluence on the attentional flexibility only on easy task.3. There was a significant interaction of the affect of diverse motivational intensityand cognitive style on attentional flexibility. Specifically, there was a significantlylarger validity effect in field-dependent participants under thehigh-approach-motivating positive affect condition relative to the neutral affectcondition, whereas there was no significant defference on validity effect infield-independent participants between in the neutral affect condition and in thehigh-approach-motivating positive affect condition (experiment7). There was a significantly larger validity effect in field-dependent participants under thelow-avoidance-motivating negative affect condition relative to the neutral affectcondition, whereas there was no significant defference on validity effect infield-independent participants between in the neutral affect condition and in thelow-avoidance-motivating negative affect condition (experiment8). The resultsindicated that the affect of diverse motivational intensity have an influence on theattentional flexibility only for field-dependent participants.In summary, these results indicated that the low-motivation affect increasedattentional flexibility, whereas high-motivation affect decreased attentional flexibility,and task difficulty and cognitive style modulated the impact of the affect of diversemotivational intensity on attentional flexibility. These results support the motivationaldimensional model of affect.