Valence, arousal and word associations

Abstract

This study aimed at testing the relative effects of valence and arousal on the generation of unusual first associates in response to non-emotional inducers. To examine this question, four specific moods varying along both the valence and the arousal dimensions were induced: happiness (positive mood, high arousal), serenity (positive mood, low arousal), anger (negative mood, high arousal) and sadness (negative mood, low arousal). The results indicate that the uniqueness of word-associations is influenced by arousal levels rather than by the valence of mood. No matter what the valence, high-arousing moods enhanced the production of unusual associates in contrast to low-arousing moods.

Creative production by angry people peaks early on, decreases over time, and is relatively unstructured

“…Accordingly, anger curtails analytic processing and leads to more heuristic and shallow information processing (Bodenhausen, Sheppard, & Kramer, 1994;Lerner & Tiedens, 2006) and increased distractibility (Kochanska & Knaack, 2003). Compared to sad people, those in angry moods engage to a lesser extent in item-specific processing of information (Corson & Verrier, 2007) but activate more widespread associative networks (Gilet & Jallais, 2011). In other words, anger leads to less systematic and detailed information processing than sadness.…”

“…Hypotheses were tested in three studies, in which anger and sadness (and a mood-neutral control in Study 2 and 3) were manipulated using self-generated imagery Gilet & Jallais, 2011;Tiedens & Linton, 2001). Participants engaged in a sixteenminute brainstorming task (Study 1 and 2), or a creative insight task that required conceptual set-breaking (Study 3).…”

“…Cognitive activation refers to increased engagement of centrally organized motivational systems to mobilize energy to sustain attention and effort toward goal-related activities Lang & Bradley, 2010) and is accompanied with physiological indicators of the sympathetic nervous system, such as increased blood pressure and heart rate (Lang & Bradley, 2010), and metabolic load (Gailliot et al, 2007). Indeed, recent work shows that moderate activation associates with enhanced creativity Byron, Khazanchi, & Nazarian, 2010;De Dreu et al, 2011;Gilet & Jallais, 2011).…”

Predicting Context-Dependent Cross-Modal Associations with Dimension-Specific Polarity Attributions Part 1 – Brightness and Aggression

“…Many additional contextual cues have the potential to influence which dimension becomes salient within a task, such as the task instructions (e.g., Banks et al, 1975;Foroni & Mayr, 2005), attention to specific cues such as the background color used in a task or the affective dimension of a stimulus (e.g., Gawronski, Rydell, Vervliet, & de Houwer, 2010;Spruyt, De Houwer, Hermans, & Eelen, 2007), but also individual differences such as a person's emotional state can influence the way concepts become related (e.g., Gilet & Jallais, 2011;Hanze & Meyer, 1998). Future studies might explore additional ways in which the salience of the underlying dimension of meaning can be manipulated, and thus how the specific association that emerges between stimuli is context-dependent.…”

Are happy drivers safer drivers? Evidence from hazard response times and eye tracking data

“…A happy mood is considered to be a high-arousal physiological state (Masmoudi, Dai and Naceur 2012;Jefferies et al 2008;Gilet and Jallais 2011). The level of arousal is an important characteristic of performance, first explained by Yerkes and Dodson (1908).…”