ABSTRACT
The findings presented in the preceding chapter (chap. 8, this volume) provide rather compelling evidence that altering the affective state of an individual leads to systematic biases in how information is processed. Changes in affective state reorder processing priorities involving working memory, attentional resources, and motivation; affective state also influences how information is represented and stored in memory, and what components of these representations are subsequently retrieved. The selective retrieval of stored information that results from affective distress, for example, can be used to account for mood-congruent biases in judgment (including self-evaluation), decision making and other cognitive processes. These effects of current emotional state on attention, motivation, cognition, and memory may be indirect, or alternatively, affect can be viewed as having informational properties, and this information is routinely integrated with other sources of information when making decisions and judgments. This affect-as-information view is based on observations that affective states can systematically bias judgment when the emotion is cognitively unconstrained.
