2.3 Social Cognition and Affect
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Topic 2: Affect and Cognition
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Learning Objectives
Describe important ways in which our affective states can influence our social cognition, both directly and indirectly, for example, through the operation of the affect heuristic.
Outline mechanisms through which our social cognition can alter our affective states, for instance, through the mechanism of misattribution of arousal.
Review the role that strategies, including cognitive reappraisal, can play in successful self-regulation.
Explore the relationship between positive cognition, affect, and behaviors.
Outline important findings in relation to our affective forecasting abilities.
[Production: Please revise sentence with the following edit indicated:] This chapter is about social cognition, and so it should not be surprising that In earlier sections we have been focusing, so far, on cognitive phenomena, including schemas and heuristics, that affect our social judgments. In reality, though, these cognitive influences do not operate in isolation from our feelings, or affect. Indeed, researchers have long been interested in the complex ways in which our thoughts are shaped by our feelings, and vice versa (Oatley, Parrott, Smith, & Watts, 2011).
[Production: Please add the following paragraph:] In this section, we will be reviewing many ways in which our emotions influence our thinking. Ultimately, we will take this a step further by exploring the way we think about and predict our feelings in the future (i.e., affective forecasting). To set the stage for this topic, we will begin with a learning activity involving a classic affective forecasting paradigm.
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Activity 4: Winning the Lottery
Introduction
In this activity, you will be predicting your future emotions in a hypothetical scenario, winning the lottery. This activity will help you to see firsthand some of the concepts that will be covered in the upcoming reading about Affective Forecasting.
Instructions
Try to answer the following questions as honestly as you can. Provide your response by using a rating scale, with 0 representing not at all happy and 5 representing being very happy.
How happy do you feel with your life overall right now?
If you won the lottery today, how happy would you feel one week later?
If you won the lottery today, how happy would you feel one year from now?
If you won the lottery today, how happy would you feel 10 years from now?
When predicting our future happiness after positive events, we are often inaccurate in predicting how long our high levels of happiness will persist. Even though an event like winning the lottery could be life changing and eliminate many difficult or negative situations in your life today, you would likely get used to the idea of having so much money very quickly. When the initial shock wears off and you settle into your new normal, you likely won’t think as much about winning the lottery anymore and will focus on the new daily hassles and stresses that come up. You will learn more about these kinds of effects in the assigned reading by Wilson & Gilbert (2005) later in this section.
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