ABSTRACT

w hat is the role of affect in the way people perceive, respond to, and interact with each other? Are happy or sad persons better at creating a positive impression, making a successful request, or producing effec- tive persuasive arguments? Does a happy mood predispose us to be more cooper-ative and optimistic in a negotiation? Most people are intuitively aware that their feelings do seem to have a profound influence on their thoughts, judgments, and behaviors. Philosophers and writers have also long been fascinated by the complex influence of affect on interpersonal relations. Few things make us more happy, or upset us more than the way others react to our interpersonal strategies. It is rather surprising then that the influence of affect on interpersonal behaviors received surprisingly little empirical attention in the past. This chapter will survey recent evidence suggesting that affective states indeed play a significant role in the way people plan and execute many everyday interpersonal strategies. Further, it will be argued that these effects can be largely understood in terms of the kind of infor-mation processing strategies people adopt when thinking about and planning their social interaction strategies. A comprehensive theory linking these processes, the Affect Infusion Model (AIM), will also be described (Forgas, 1995a, 2002).