Sadness as pleasure-seeking prime and anxiety as attentiveness prime: The "Different Affect-Different Effect" (DADE) model

According to popular interpretations of both the mood repair and affect-as-information theories, affective states of the same valence should have equivalent influences on behavior. We propose, instead, the Different Affect-Different Effect (DADE) model. Building on cognitive and psychoevolutionary theories of affect, we predict that while sadness leads to seeking pleasurable stimuli ( consistent with mood repair predictions), anxiety leads to becoming more attentive ( consistent with affect-as-information predictions). These predictions are tested using consumption stimuli and, across two experiments, results were consistent with our hypotheses. This research helps resolve apparent discrepancies among our findings and those found in previous mood repair and affect-as-information literatures. Specifically, we suggest that in previous demonstrations of mood repair through seeking pleasurable stimuli, the mood-state in question was most closely related to that of sadness. Likewise, we argue that in previous demonstrations of sadness leading to greater attentiveness, the procedure used to evoke sadness is also likely to have evoked anxiety.