Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Clinical Trial
. 2003 Mar;84(3):453-69.
doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.84.3.453.

Affect as information in persuasion: a model of affect identification and discounting

Dolores Albarracín  1 , G Tarcan Kumkale
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Affect as information in persuasion: a model of affect identification and discounting

Dolores Albarracín et al. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2003 Mar.

Abstract

Three studies examined the implications of a model of affect as information in persuasion. According to this model, extraneous affect may have an influence when message recipients exert moderate amounts of thought, because they identify their affective reactions as potential criteria but fail to discount them as irrelevant. However, message recipients may not use affect as information when they deem affect irrelevant or when they do not identify their affective reactions at all. Consistent with this curvilinear prediction, recipients of a message that either favored or opposed comprehensive exams used affect as a basis for attitudes in situations that elicited moderate thought. Affect, however, had no influence on attitudes in conditions that elicited either large or small amounts of thought.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Stages in the use of affect as information.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary of findings from Experiments 1 and 2. Values represent the impact of affect, which we computed by subtracting the mean of attitudes when affect was negative from the mean of attitudes when affect was positive. HA = high ability; HM = high motivation; LM = low motivation; LA = low ability.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abelson RP. Statistics as a principled argument. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum; 1995.
    1. Adolphs R, Damasio AR. The interaction of affect and cognition: A neurobiological perspective. In: Forgas JP, editor. Handbook of affect and social cognition. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; 2001. pp. 27–49.
    1. Ajzen I, Fishbein M. Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1980.
    1. Ajzen I, Madden TJ. Prediction of goal-directed behavior, attitudes, intentions, and perceived behavioral control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 1986;22:453–474.
    1. Albarracín D. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Illinois; Urbana–Champaign: 1997. Processing of behavior-related communications as a function of cognitive elaboration: A multiple-stage model.

Publication types