JUDGMENTS UNDER DISTRESS - ASSESSING THE ROLE OF UNPLEASANTNESS AND AROUSAL IN JUDGMENT FORMATION

This study tests predictions derived from a theoretical model of affect and decision making that identifies the effects of affect's two primary dimensions, Pleasantness and Arousal, on decision strategy selection. The model hypothesizes (i) a congruency between pleasantness and selected decision strategy and (ii) an arousal-induced restriction in attentional capacity. It was predicted that people under distress (evoked by an imminent in-class presentation) will employ simpler decision strategies and will form more polarized judgments. In Experiments 1 and 2, when forming person impressions, presenting subjects provided lower evaluations, employed simpler decision rules, and were more polarized in their evaluations. In both experiments, presenting subjects did not make lower retrieval-based evaluations of public and personal products. In Experiment 2, presenting subjects were willing to pay more for lottery tickets than nonpresenting subjects; they were also more likely than control subjects to choose a "sure" thing over a gamble of equal or lower expected value. © 1992.