Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
Theory of Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations (TARAS):
A Cognitive Account of Negativity Dominance
Ulrich Schimmack
University of Toronto, Mississauga
Stan Colcombe
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
February 2002
RUNNING HEAD: Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
about 6,000 words
Ulrich Schimmack
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto at Mississauga
Erindale College
3359 Mississauga Road North
Mississauga, Ontario, L5L 1C6
Canada
email: uli.schimmack@utoronto.ca
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Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
Abstract
Negativity dominance in affective reactions to conflicting picture pairs was examined
(Rozin & Royzman, 2001). Negativity dominance assumes that a pair of a positive and a
negative picture elicits more displeasure and/or less pleasure than the positive and the
negative picture in isolation. The type of positive (erotic vs. non-erotic) and negative
(moderate vs. strong) pictures was manipulated. Negativity dominance was expected to
be stronger for pairs with strong negative pictures and weaker for pairs with erotic
positive pictures. We also predicted that conflicting pairs with an erotic positive picture
elicit more intense mixed feelings (pleasure & displeasure) than conflicting picture pairs
with a non-erotic positive picture. All three hypotheses were supported.
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Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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Theory of Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations (TARAS):
A Cognitive Account of Negativity Dominance
Experiences of pleasure and displeasure are a prominent topic in psychology
(Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Rozin, 1999; Schimmack, 2001). Several emotion
theories consider pleasure and displeasure core elements of affective experiences (Ortony
et al., 1988; Reisenzein, 1992; Schimmack, Oishi, Diener, & Suh, 2000; Weiner, 1986;
Wierzbicka, 1992). Furthermore, well-being researchers rely on pleasure and displeasure
as important indicators of subjective well-being or happiness (Diener, 1984; Kahneman,
1999; Schimmack, Diener, & Oishi, 2001; Schimmack, Radhakrishnan, Oishi, Dzokoto,
& Ahadi, in press). Kahneman, Diener, and Schwarz (1999) even proposed hedonic
psychology as a field entirely devoted to the "study of what makes experiences and life
pleasant and unpleasant" (p. xi).
Appraisals as Determinants of Pleasure and Displeasure
The determinants of pleasure and displeasure have been studied extensively by
appraisal theorists of emotions (e.g., Lazarus, 1991; Ortony et al., 1988; Reisenzein &
Spielhofer, 1994; Scherer, 1984, 2001; Smith & Kirby, 2000, 2001). Accord to appraisal
theories, pleasure and displeasure are outcomes of appraisals of the environment with
regard to one's own needs, goals, desires, or standards. Favorable comparisons produce
pleasure, whereas unfavorable comparisons produce displeasure. Ortony et al. (1988)
differentiate three classes of appraisals, namely (a) appraisals of event-outcomes, (b)
appraisals of agents' actions, and (c) appraisals of objects. The present article is concerned
with appraisals of objects. According to Ortony et al. (1988), objects are appraised in
terms of appealingness. Appealing objects elicit pleasure, whereas appalling objects elicit
displeasure. However, what emotional response is elicited by conflicting appraisals? For
example, you may walk along a tropical beach littered with trash. The white sand and
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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blue water is appraised as appealing, whereas the trash is appraised as appalling. What is
the affective experience in this situation?
Theory of Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations (TARAS)
Schimmack (2002) proposed the Distributed Attention Theory of Emotions (DATE)
to explain affective reactions to conflicting situations. However, Kappas (2001) used the
acronym DATE for his Dynamic Appraisal Theory of Emotion. Hence, we changed the
name of our theory to Theory of Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations (TARAS).
TARAS was inspired by existing appraisal theories (Reisenzein, 2001; Scherer, 2001;
Smith & Kirby, 2001) and it is in general agreement with other appraisal theories. The
major difference to other appraisal theories is that TARAS is explicitly a theory of
affective reactions to conflicting situations, whereas other appraisal theories typically
focus on affective responses to a single event or a single aspect of a complex event.
The main assumption of TARAS is that affective reactions to conflicting situations
depend on the focus of attention (cf. Ortony et al., 1988; Scherer, 2001). In real life,
people are constantly confronted with multiple objects. To function in these complex
situations, people need to select the most relevant objects for more elaborate processing.
Scherer (2001) postulated that the first step of an appraisal process is the deployment of
attention to the most relevant aspects of a complex situation for more detailed appraisals
of these aspects. Hence, affective reactions to conflicting situations should depend
primarily on the appraisal of a few aspects in the focus of attention.
The same assumption is made in Ortony et al.’s (1988) discussion of conflicting
situations, such as a friend getting an undeserved pay raise. This event can be appraised
from the perspective of something good happening to a friend (positive) and from a
perspective of fairness (negative). Ortony et al. (1988) assume that the affective reaction
to the event depends on the focus of attention. If attention is devoted to fairness, the event
elicits displeasure. If attention is focused on the friend’s fortune, the event elicits
pleasure. However, the authors also assume that it is possible to attend to both aspects of
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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the situation and to make conflicting appraisals. “It is entirely possible for a person to
take both perspectives and to have ’mixed feelings’ about such an event” (p. 102).
In short, TARAS assumes that affective reactions to conflicting situations are
influenced by attention processes. If attention focused entirely on the positive aspect of a
situation, people should experience only pleasure and no displeasure. If attention focused
only on the negative aspect of a situation, then people should experience only displeasure
and no pleasure. If attention focused on both the positive and the negative aspect, the
experience would be mixed – pleasant and unpleasant. However, the amount of pleasure
and displeasure should depend on the distribution of attention. The more attention focuses
on the negative aspect, the less attention is devoted to other stimuli (cf. MacLin, MacLin,
& Malpass, 2001). Hence, attentional biases toward the negative pictures should increase
displeasure and decrease pleasure.
TARAS’s Explanation of Negativity Dominance
Rozin and Royzman (2001) noted that affective reactions to conflicting situations
often produce negativity dominance. That is, the affective response to trash on a beach is
more negative (less pleasant and/or more unpleasant) than the algebraic sum of the
pleasure elicited by the beach without trash and the displeasure elicited by trash without a
beach. Rozin and Royzman’s (2001) review revealed only a few studies that documented
negativity dominance because affective reactions to conflicting situations have been
neglected in contemporary affect research. Furthermore, the processes underlying
negativity dominance are largely unknown.
We propose that TARAS can explain negativity dominance in people’s affective
reactions to conflicting situations. The reason is that negative stimuli often attract more
attention than positive stimuli (Pratto & John, 1991; see Rozin & Royzman, 2001, for a
review). Recently, Mogg, McNamara, Powys, Rawlinson, Seiffer, and Bradley (2000)
tested the influence of concurrent presentations of positive and negative pictures on
attention. Participants saw pairs of appealing and appalling pictures. After 500 ms, a dot
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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appeared in the location of one of the two pictures and participants had to press a button
as soon as they detected the dot. Participants were faster in detecting the dot in the
location of a negative picture than in the location of a positive picture, and this effect was
more pronounced for strong negative pictures than for moderate negative pictures. This
study suggests that in conflicting situations with a positive picture and a negative picture,
the negative picture attracts more attention. If the picture that attracts more attention has a
stronger impact on the affective reaction, then conflicting picture-pairs should produce
negativity dominance.
In short, we propose that affective reactions to conflicting situations depend on the
distribution of attention. Typically, the appalling aspect of the situation attracts more
attention, which produces negativity dominance in the affective reactions. One major
implication of the cognitive theory of negativity dominance is that positive stimuli that
attract attention should reduce negativity dominance.
Influence of Different Types of Appealing Pictures on Attention
Several lines of research suggest that positive stimuli can vary in their ability to
attract attention independent of their appealingness. In particular, erotic stimuli have been
shown to attract more attention than other appealing stimuli. For example, Pratto (1994)
demonstrated that the negativity bias in attention disappeared when negative words were
pitted against erotic words in the Emotional Stroop task. Research with affective pictures
also attests to the attention-grabbing quality of erotic material (Bradley Codispoti,
Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001; Lang, Greenwald, Bradley & Hamm, 1993). These studies show
that erotic stimuli elicit the same amount of pleasure as many other appealing pictures but
differ from other appealing stimuli in variables related to attention. Namely, erotic
pictures elicit higher arousal ratings, more skin conductance responses, higher interest
ratings, and longer viewing times than non-erotic positive pictures.
Hence, we decided to manipulate the type of positive pictures to provide a first test
of our cognitive theory of negativity dominance. We predicted that affective reactions to
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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conflicting picture-pairs produce negativity dominance when the positive picture does not
attract attention (i.e., highly pleasant, non-erotic pictures). However, negativity
dominance should be weaker for conflicting pairs that include attention-grabbing positive
pictures (i.e., erotic pictures). We also manipulated the strength of negative pictures.
Mogg et al. (2000) demonstrated that strong negative pictures attract more attention than
moderate negative pictures. Hence, we predicted that conflicting pairs with strong
negative pictures produce stronger negativity dominance than conflicting pairs with
moderate negative pictures. This prediction is independent of the strength of the affective
reaction to moderate and strong negative pictures because the test of negativity
dominance controls for this difference (see Results section).
Mixed Feelings
We also examined whether conflicting picture pairs elicit mixed feelings (cf.
Schimmack, 2001). Ortony et al. (1988) hypothesized that people experience mixed
feelings when they appraise both the positive and the negative aspect of a situation.
Similarly, TARAS allows for mixed feelings if people divide their attention between
positive and negative aspects of the situation. However, the negativity bias in attention
suggests that people are more likely to focus on the negative aspect of a situation, which
would reduce the experience of pleasure and therewith the experience of mixed feelings.
As a result, the experience of mixed feelings should depend the ability of positive
pictures to attract attention. Conflicting pairs with non-erotic positive pictures that do not
attract attention should produce less mixed feelings than conflicting pairs with erotic
pictures that do attract attention.
Predictions
We examined affective reactions to conflicting picture-pairs, and we manipulated
the type of positive and negative pictures in these pairs. We made the following
predictions:
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
(a) Conflicting pairs with a strong negative picture produce stronger negativity
dominance than pairs with a moderate negative picture.
(b) Conflicting pairs with an erotic picture produce weaker negativity dominance
than pairs with a non-erotic positive picture.
(c) Conflicting pairs with an erotic picture elicit stronger mixed feelings than
conflicting pairs with a non-erotic positive picture.
Method
Participants
Eighty male students at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, took part in
the study for course credit. Another 26 students from the same population participated in
a pilot study that examined the validity of our stimulus selection. We chose male
participants because men respond more strongly to erotic pictorial material (Bradley,
Codispoti, Sabatinelli, & Lang, 2001) and because it was easier to obtain erotic pictures
depicting female models than male models.
Materials
Pictures were taken partly from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS;
Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1995), and partly from free Internet sites. All pictures were
edited to be 300 pixels wide and 450 pixels long to enable side-by-side presentations on
an 800 x 600 pixel screen. Furthermore, we used black-and-white pictures because the
computers for this study did not support high quality color presentations.
We compiled a set of 50 pictures that included 10 non-erotic positive pictures
(NEP), 10 erotic positive pictures (EP), 10 moderate negative pictures (MN) and 10
strong negative pictures (SN). We also created 10 “neutral” pictures, which were white
frames that were filled with the background color of the screen. We used these stimuli to
measure affective reactions to the affective pictures in a neutral context, while still
presenting two frames on all trials (recent work shows that the same results are obtained
with truly neutral pictures; e.g., a hairdryer). Affective reactions to the pictures in
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Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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isolation (or in a neutral context) are essential for testing negativity dominance (see
Results section).
In a pilot study, 26 students saw each of the 50 pictures for 4s in a randomized
sequence. After each picture, students rated how pleasant, unpleasant, excited, and tense
they felt during the picture presentation. Ratings were made on a seven-point scale
ranging from 0 = not at all to 6 = extremely. The most important finding of the pilot study
was that non-erotic positive pictures (M = 3.40) elicited as much pleasure as erotic
pleasant pictures (M = 3.68), t(25) = 1.24, p = .23. However, erotic pictures elicited more
excitement (M = 3.56) than the non-erotic positive pictures (M = 1.65). This finding is
consistent with previous studies that erotic pictures can be more arousing and attentiongrabbing, while eliciting as much pleasure as non-erotic pictures (Bradley et al., 2001;
Lang et al., 1993). However, amount of displeasure is highly correlated with arousal
(Lang et al., 1993). This correlation was confirmed in our pilot study. Strong negative
pictures elicited more displeasure and more tension (Ms = 3.99, 2.86, respectively) than
moderate negative pictures (Ms = 2.93, 1.83), t(25) > 3.00.
Procedure
The 50 pictures were presented in 25 pairs. The pairs were based on a complete
pairing of the five stimulus types. The computer randomly determined the assignment of
the 10 pictures of each stimulus type to the 25 pairs. For example, the non-erotic positive
picture of a puppy was paired with a neutral, erotic-positive, moderate-negative, and a
strong-negative picture for different participants. The random assignment of individual
pictures to pairs controlled for unique context effects of particular combinations of
pictures and the variation within the five sets of pictures.
The computer also randomly determined the presentation order of the 25 pairs. We
used two presentation modes. Forty-four participants saw the two pictures of each pair in
rapid (400 ms) alternation. The remaining 36 participants saw the two pictures of each
pair side by side. Each presentation lasted 4s. Afterwards, the pictures were removed and
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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a rating scale appeared. Participants rated the intensity of pleasure, displeasure on a
seven-point intensity scale ranging from 0 = not at all to 6 = extremely intense. The
computer randomly determined the order of the items.
Results
To test significance, we used two-tailed tests and an alpha error of .05. Our design
implied that pairs of two different picture types were presented twice. For side-by-side
presentations, we examined whether the arrangement of stimuli had an effect. However,
we found no difference between pairs with a positive picture on the left and a negative
picture on the right side and pairs with the reverse arrangement. Thus, we averaged the
data across the two replications of these pairs. Next, we explored whether the
presentation mode, side-by-side versus rapid alternation, influenced the results. Again, no
significant differences were found.
Pleasure
To examine pleasure in conflicting pairs we computed a 2 x 3 Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) with type of positive picture (erotic vs. non-erotic) and type of context picture
(neutral, moderate negative, strong negative) as within-subject variables. We predicted
that the negative pictures reduce pleasure, and that the reduction is stronger for non-erotic
pictures than for erotic pictures. This prediction was supported by a significant
interaction, F(2, 158) = 114.26. Figure 1 shows the pattern of the interaction. The
presence of a negative picture decreased the pleasure that the positive picture elicited in a
neutral context. Strong negative pictures had a stronger impact than moderate negative
pictures. This effect is consistent with Mogg et al.’s (2000) finding that strong negative
pictures attract more attention than moderate negative pictures. The most important
finding is that erotic pictures were less influenced by the presence of a negative picture
than non-erotic picture. The differences in pleasure between erotic pictures and non-erotic
pictures in the context of negative pictures were significantly larger than the difference in
the neutral context.
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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Displeasure
We conducted the same type of analysis for displeasure. That is, we computed a 2 x
3 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with type of negative picture (moderate vs. strong) and
type of context picture (neutral, non-erotic, erotic) as within-subject variables. Again, we
obtained a significant interaction, F(2, 158) = F(2, 158) = 78.60. Figure 2 shows the
pattern of the interaction. Strong negative pictures elicit more displeasure than moderate
negative pictures in all contexts. The presence of a positive picture decreases the full
amount of displeasure that negative pictures elicited in the neutral context. The
suppression of displeasure was stronger for erotic pictures than for non-erotic pictures.
The interaction is due to the fact that erotic pictures produced the same suppression effect
for moderate and strong negative pictures, whereas non-erotic pictures has a weaker
suppression effect on strong negative pictures than on moderate negative pictures.
Negativity Dominance
The next analysis directly tested negativity dominance. Negativity dominance can
be tested by determining the effect of pairing pictures with an opposing picture on
pleasure and displeasure. First, we determined the difference in pleasure (D[P]) by
subtracting pleasure in response to a conflicting pair (CP) from pleasure elicited by the
positive picture in a neutral (N) context (D[P] = PN – PCP). Then we determined the
difference in displeasure (D[D]) by subtracting displeasure in response to a conflicting
pair (CP) from displeasure elicited by the negative picture in a neutral (N) context (D[D]
= DN – DCP). Then we subtracted P[D] from D[D] to create a combination index (CI). The
CI is constructed so that negative values reflect negativity dominance. For example,
assume that a positive picture elicits strong pleasure (4) and a negative picture elicits
strong displeasure (4) and the combination of both pictures elicits mild pleasure (1) and
moderate displeasure (3). In this case, the difference in pleasure would be larger (D[P] =
4 – 1 = 3) than the difference in displeasure (D[D] = 4 – 3 = 1) and the combination index
would be negative (CI = 1 – 3 = -2).
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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We computed CI values for the four types of conflicting pairs and submitted these
values to a 2 x 2 ANOVA with type of positive picture (erotic vs. non-erotic) and type of
negative picture (moderate vs. strong) as within-subject variables. The ANOVA revealed
significant main effects for type of positive picture, F(1,79) = 31.45, and type of negative
picture, F(1,79) = 12.96. The interaction failed to reach significance, F(1,79) = 3.44, p =
.07. Figure 3 shows the pattern of results. The most important finding was the main effect
for type of positive picture: As predicted, conflicting pairs with non-erotic pictures
revealed negativity dominance, whereas negativity dominance was weaker for erotic
pictures. In fact, erotic pictures were able to fully eliminate the typical negativity
dominance effect when paired with strong negative pictures and there was a trend (p =
.06) towards positivity dominance for pairs of erotic pictures and moderate negative
pictures. The main effect for type of negative pictures shows a stronger negativity
dominance effect for strong negative pictures. This finding is also consistent with our
predictions.
Mixed Feelings
The final analyses examined the occurrence of mixed feelings in response to
conflicting picture pairs. The intensity of mixed feelings was derived from participants’
pleasure and displeasure ratings, using the MIN statistic (Schimmack, 2001). MIN
resumes the lower values of the two ratings. If pleasure or displeasure were zero, MIN
resumes a value of zero, which reflects that at least one of the two affects was absent (i.e.,
intensity = 0). Hence, MIN values of zero indicate that pleasure and displeasure did not
co-occur. Averaged across many trials, MIN values close to zero indicate that pleasure
and displeasure are mutually exclusive. In contrast, MIN values greater than zero indicate
that participants experienced pleasure and displeasure during the picture presentation. We
used MIN values in response to the “neutral pair” (i.e., two empty frames) to control for
the influences of response styles. MIN for neutral pairs was close to zero (M = 0.19),
indicating that response styles had a negligible influence on the affect ratings. This
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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finding is consistent with other findings that response styles in affect ratings are
negligible (Schimmack, Bockenholt, & Reisenzein, in press; Watson & Clark, 1997).
MIN values for the four types of conflicting pairs were all significantly higher than
those the MIN value for the neutral pair, t(79) > 5.00. We computed an ANOVA with
type of positive picture (non-erotic vs. erotic) and type of negative picture (moderate vs.
strong) as within-subject variables and MIN scores as the dependent variable. The main
effect for type of positive picture was significant, F(1,79) = 16.73. The main effect for
type of negative picture failed to be significant, F(1,79) < 3.39, p = .07. The interaction
was not significant, F = 2.16, p = .16. Figure 4 shows the pattern of the data. As
predicted, conflicting pairs with an erotic picture elicited stronger mixed feelings than
conflicting pairs with a non-erotic positive picture. Although the overall interaction was
not significant, a direct comparison suggested that pairs of an erotic picture and a strong
negative picture elicited stronger mixed feelings than pairs of an erotic picture and a
moderate negative picture, t(79) = 2.14.
Discussion
We examined affective reactions to conflicting picture pairs. The results of our
study supported our hypotheses. Affective reactions to conflicting situations typically
show negativity dominance (Rozin & Royzman, 2001). However, the magnitude of this
effect depended on the nature of the positive and the negative picture. Most important,
negativity dominance was eliminated for conflicting pairs with erotic pictures as positive
stimulus. This finding is consistent with our cognitive theory of affective reactions to
conflicting situations (TARAS). TARAS predicts that erotic pictures reduce negativity
dominance because they attract more attention. We also found that strong negative
pictures produced stronger negativity dominance than moderate negative pictures. This
finding is also consistent with our cognitive theory of negativity dominance because
strong negative pictures attract more attention than moderate negative pictures (Mogg et
al., 2001). Finally, we found that conflicting pairs with an erotic picture elicited more
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
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intense mixed feelings than conflicting pairs with a non-erotic positive picture. Once
more, this finding is consistent with our cognitive theory. Accordingly, the experience of
mixed feelings depends on the focus of attention. Mixed feelings should only be
experienced if people attend to both the positive and the negative aspect of a situation.
For conflicting pairs with non-erotic pictures attention is heavily biased towards the
negative picture, which drastically reduces pleasure. In contrast, erotic pictures attract
more attention, which maintains higher levels of pleasure besides the experience of
displeasure, resulting in more intense mixed feelings.
Alternative Explanations
We did not manipulate attention directly. Hence, it is possible that our findings can
be explained by alternative variables. One explanation would be the extremity of the
affective response. Strong negative pictures could produce stronger negativity dominance
because they produce stronger activity in neurological substrates that suppress the
generation of pleasure. However, this alternative explanation cannot account for the effect
of erotic pictures on negativity dominance because non-erotic and erotic positive pictures
elicited the same amount of pleasure. Another alternative explanation could be that nonerotic pictures and erotic pictures elicit two different types of pleasure (e.g., relaxation,
sexual excitement). Maybe sexual excitement is more resistant to concurrent negative
stimuli than relaxation. However, this alternative explanation cannot explain the stronger
negativity dominance for strong negative pictures to moderate negative pictures because
these pictures did not elicit qualitatively different feelings.
It is more difficult to dismiss general arousal as an explanation because both erotic
pictures and strong negative pictures are more arousing than non-erotic and moderate
negative pictures. Nevertheless, general arousal cannot explain the data pattern. If we
assume a general arousal dimension, then a pair of an erotic positive picture (high
arousal) and a moderate negative picture (low arousal) would produce a similar amount of
arousal than a non-erotic positive picture (low arousal) and a strong negative picture (high
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
15
arousal). However, these two conditions have very different affective outcomes. The
former condition yields slight positive dominance and the latter condition yields strong
negativity dominance. In short, our cognitive explanation of negativity dominance
provides a parsimonious and plausible account of the data pattern. Future research needs
to test the influence of direct manipulation of attention on negativity dominance.
Ecological Validity
Our experimental paradigm had the advantage of providing a direct test of
negativity dominance, which requires the assessment of the algebraic sum of affective
reactions to the aspects of a conflicting stimulus in isolation (Rozin & Royzman, 2001).
The cost of this advantage is that our paradigm has no direct equivalent in the real world.
The trade-off between ecological validity and internal validity is of course not unique to
our paradigm but common to many other influential paradigms in emotion research (e.g.,
emotional Stroop task, dot-probe paradigm, affective priming tasks, etc.).
Nevertheless, we believe that our results are important for the understanding of
emotions in the real world. First, it is entirely possible that two unrelated stimuli are
appraised at the same time. The two stimuli can be an internal sensation and an external
stimulus (e.g., watching an interesting movie with a full bladder) or two external stimuli
(e.g., watching the waves while hearing the noise of a busy highway). It seems plausible
that humans’ affective reactions to two conflicting and unrelated stimuli in the real world
would also be influenced by the focus of attention.
Another open question is the generalizability of our findings to affective reactions
to a single object with conflicting attributes (e.g., a property with a fabulous view on a
busy street). Although affective reactions to two unrelated objects seem to be different
from affective reactions to one object with two conflicting attributes, this distinction may
be more logical than psychological. Ortony et al. (1988) noted that the same situation
could be described in alternative ways. For example, imagine a house buyer who is seeing
a house for sale, which looks very appealing but which is located at a busy intersection.
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
16
Does the house buyer have an affective reaction to a single object (the property as a
whole) or an affective reaction to the two salient aspects of the property (the beauty of the
house, the noisy intersection)? Furthermore, does the classification of this situation as a
response to a single object or as one to two unrelated objects make any difference for the
prediction of the affective reaction? We believe that our findings can be plausibly applied
to this common everyday example. Just assume that the buyer is blind or deaf. We would
predict that the blind buyer would dislike the property, whereas the deaf buyer would like
it.
We recognize, however, that the situation may be different with familiar objects
that elicit an affective reaction independent of their attributes (cf. Reisenzein, 1992). In
this situation, the affective reaction may depend again on the focus of attention. If an
object with conflicting attributes is appraised at the level of the attributes, it is likely to
elicit mixed feelings. However, if the same object is appraised as a whole, it may elicit
only one affective reaction. For example, even a loving spouse typically notices some
undesirable attributes in his/her spouse. However, that does not imply that a spouse
constantly elicits mixed feelings. The reason is probably that spouses do not constantly
evaluate their partners at the level of their attributes. However, when certain situations
make the undesirable attributes salient, the emotional response is likely to be one of
mixed feelings because spouses are likely to recognize positive aspects along with the
salient negative aspect. Future research needs to examine affective reactions to conflicting
situations with different stimuli, different paradigms, and in ecologically valid situations.
Practical Implications
Our findings also have interesting implications for mood regulation (NolenHoeksema & Morrow, 1993), emotion regulation (Gross, 1999), and pain management
(Eccleston & Crombez, 1999). Many affect-regulation theories consider distraction as an
important regulation mechanism. That is, people can regulate affect by manipulating their
attention. However, often the negative affect and its sources command attention, which
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
17
makes affect regulation difficult. Hence, it is important to determine which distraction
strategies are successful.
Intuitively, one might expect that a state of unpleasant-tension could be best undone
by an opposing stimulus that is pleasant and calm. However, our work shows that
pleasant and calm stimuli were less effective in reducing displeasure than pleasantarousing stimuli. This finding is consistent with the literature on distraction from pain,
which shows that engaging and demanding distracters are more effective than pleasant
distracters (Eccleston & Crombez, 1999).
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
18
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Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
Figure 1
Pleasure in Response to Erotic and Non-Erotic Positive Pictures in the Context of
Neutral, Moderately Negative, and Strong Negative Pictures
Figure 2
Displeasure in Response to Erotic and Non-Erotic Positive Pictures in the Context of
Neutral, Moderately Negative, and Strong Negative Pictures
Figure 3
Combination Index for Four Types of Conflicting Picture-Pairs
Figure 4
Mixed Feelings in Response to Four Types of Conflicting Picture-Pairs
22
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
5
Pleasure
4
3
2
1
0
neutral
moderate negative
erotic
non-erotic
strong negative
23
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
5
Displeasure
4
3
2
1
0
neutral
non-erotic
moderate negative
strong negative
erotic
24
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
Combination Index
2.5
1.5
0.5
-0.5
-1.5
-2.5
non-erotic
moderate negative
erotic
strong negative
25
Affective Reactions to Ambivalent Situations
Mixed Feelings
1.5
1
0.5
0
non-erotic
moderate negative
erotic
strong negative
26