Tom F. Price

Does Negative Affect Always Narrow and Positive Affect Always Broaden the Mind? Considering the Influence of Motivational Intensity on Cognitive Scope

Research over the last 5 decades has suggested that negative affective states narrow cognitive scope, whereas positive affective states broaden cognitive scope. An examination of this past research, however, reveals that only negative affects of high motivational intensity (e.g., fear, stress) and positive affects of low motivational intensity (e.g., gratitude, amusement) may have been examined. Consequently, over the last 5 years, research has examined positive and negative affects that are low (e.g., sadness) versus high (e.g., desire) in motivational intensity. This research has found that affects of low motivational intensity broaden cognitive scope whereas affects of high motivational intensity narrow cognitive scope, regardless of the positivity or negativity of the affective state.

What is Approach Motivation

We discuss some research that has examined approach motivational urges and how this research clarifies the definition of approach motivation. Our research and that of others have raised doubts about the commonly accepted definition of approach motivation, which views it as a positive affective state triggered by positive stimuli. We review evidence that suggests: (a) that approach motivation is occasionally evoked by negative stimuli; (b) that approach motivation may be experienced as a negative state; and (c) that stimuli are unnecessary to evoke approach motivation.

The influence of affective states varying in motivational intensity on cognitive scope.

We review a program of research that has suggested that affective states high in motivationally intensity (e.g., enthusiasm, disgust) narrow cognitive scope, whereas affective states low in motivationally intensity (e.g., joy, sadness) broaden cognitive scope. Further supporting this interpretation, indices of brain activations, derived from human electroencephalography, suggest that the motivational intensity of the affective state predicts the narrowing of cognitive scope. Finally, research suggests that the relationship between emotive intensity and cognitive scope is bi-directional, such that manipulated changes in cognitive scope influence early brain activations associated with emotive intensity. In the end, the review highlights how emotion can impair and improve certain cognitive processes.

Leaning embodies desire: Evidence that leaning forward increases relative left frontal cortical activation to appetitive stimuli

We often lean toward things or people we desire. Does the converse happen as well? Does simply leaning forward increase patterns of neural activation associated with desire? Desire can be conceptualized as similar to the broader construct, approach motivation. Research has found that manipulated body postures reduce approach motivation (Harmon-Jones and Peterson, 2009; Riskind and Gotay, 1982). The present experiment tested whether leaning forward, a body posture associated with approach motivation, would increase approach motivation. We measured a pattern of neural activation associated with approach motivation, relative left frontal cortical activation, in response to pictures of appetitive (desserts) vs. neutral objects (rocks) while participants leaned forward or reclined backward. Leaning forward increased relative left frontal cortical activation to appetitive vs. neutral pictures; the reclining condition produced no differences between stimuli.

The effect of embodied emotive states on cognitive categorization.

Research has uncovered that positive affect broadens cognitive categorization. The motivational dimensional model, however, posits that positive affect is not a unitary construct with only one cognitive consequence. Instead, this model puts forth that there are different positive affects varying in approach motivational intensity. According to this model, only positive affects lower in motivational intensity should broaden cognitive processes, whereas positive affects higher in motivational intensity should narrow cognitive processes. Consistent with these predictions, high approach positive affect has been shown to narrow attention, whereas low approach positive affect has been shown to broaden it (Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2008). High approach positive affect, therefore, might narrow categorization. Two experiments investigated this possibility by having participants respond to cognitive categorization tasks in 3 body postures designed to elicit different levels of approach motivation: reclining backward, which should evoke low approach motivation; sitting upright, which should evoke moderate approach motivation; and leaning forward, which should evoke high approach motivation. Participants smiled while in each posture in order to experience positive affect. Experiment 1 provided initial support for the idea that high approach positive affect narrows categorization and low approach positive affect broadens categorization. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with improved smiling instructions. These results extend previous work by showing that the motivational models predictions hold for basic attentional processes as well as higher level cognitive processes such as categorization.

Embodying approach motivation: Body posture influences startle eyeblink and event-related potential responses to appetitive stimuli

Past research suggested that the motivational significance of images influences reflexive and electrocortical responses to those images (Briggs and Martin, 2009; Gard et al., 2007; Schupp et al., 2004), with erotica often exerting the largest effects for appetitive pictures (Grillon and Baas, 2003; Weinberg and Hajcak, 2010). This research paradigm, however, compares responses to different types of images (e.g., erotica vs. exciting sports scenes). This past motivational interpretation, therefore, would be further supported by experiments wherein appetitive picture content is held constant and motivational states are manipulated with a different method. In the present experiment, we tested the hypothesis that changes in physical postures associated with approach motivation influences reflexive and electrocortical responses to appetitive stimuli. Past research has suggested that bodily manipulations (e.g., facial expressions) play a role in emotion- and motivation-related physiology (Ekman and Davidson, 1993; Levenson et al., 1990). Extending these results, leaning forward (associated with a heightened urge to approach stimuli) relative to reclining (associated with less of an urge to approach stimuli) caused participants to have smaller startle eyeblink responses during appetitive, but not neutral, picture viewing. Leaning relative to reclining also caused participants to have larger LPPs to appetitive but not neutral pictures, and influenced ERPs as early as 100ms into stimulus viewing. This evidence suggests that body postures associated with approach motivation causally influence basic reflexive and electrocortical reactions to appetitive emotive stimuli.

Approach motivational body postures lean toward left frontal brain activity.

The present experiment examined the effect of different approach motivational body postures on relative left frontal cortical activity, which has been linked with approach motivation. Three body postures were manipulated to create three levels of approach motivation. Consistent with the motivational direction model, results indicated that leaning forward with arms extended (high approach) caused greater left frontal cortical activation as compared to reclining backwards (low approach). This is the first experiment to demonstrate this effect, and it suggests that leaning forward as compared to reclining backward increases approach motivation. These results provide important implications for the motivational direction model and embodiment research.

Toward an Understanding of the Influence of Affective States on Attentional Tuning: Comment on Friedman and Förster (2010)

Friedman and Förster (2010) reviewed an extensive program of research that was consistent with the view that positive affective states broaden, whereas negative affective states narrow, the scope of attention. We applaud their creative investigations into these important psychological questions and appreciate their thorough review. However, recent evidence strongly suggests that the conclusions drawn by Friedman and Förster need to be tempered, for the recent evidence suggests that motivational intensity rather than affective valence causes the modulations of attentional tuning. That is, affective states of low motivational intensity (e.g., sadness, postgoal positive affect) broaden attention, whereas affective states of high motivational intensity (e.g., disgust, pregoal positive affect) narrow attention. Our viewpoint is that attentional narrowing occurs during affective states of high motivational intensity to aid organisms in acquiring desirable objects and avoiding aversive ones. Attentional broadening occurs during affective states of low motivational intensity to open organisms to new opportunities.

Embodied emotion: the influence of manipulated facial and bodily states on emotive responses

A growing body of evidence suggests that certain facial expressions and postures are associated with emotional and motivational responses. This review discusses behavioral, neuroscientific, and cognitive research connecting these bodily movements with emotive responses. General bodily feedback theories of emotion have suggested that manipulated facial expressions and postures influence emotive reactions to stimuli as well as physiological responses such as heart rate, skin conductance, and the temperature of blood entering the brain. More recent evidence suggests that manipulated bodily states influence prefrontal cortical activation and amygdala activation. Even further evidence has suggested that manipulated bodily states influence cognitive processes, such as the speed at which individuals read emotional content, the speed at which they classify information as emotional, and the extent to which they determine emotional information as threatening. Bodily feedback theories may also suggest clinical applications. Bodily feedback theories of emotion therefore have generated research showing that bodily expressions play a pivotal role in our emotive experiences.

Neural and behavioral associations of manipulated determination facial expressions

Past research associated relative left frontal cortical activity with positive affect and approach motivation, or the urge to move toward a stimulus. Less work has examined relative left frontal activity and positive emotions ranging from low to high approach motivation, to test whether positive affects that differ in approach motivational intensity influence relative left frontal cortical activity. Participants in the present experiment adopted determination (high approach positive), satisfaction (low approach positive), or neutral facial expressions while electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded. Next, participants completed a task measuring motivational persistence behavior and then they completed self-report emotion questionnaires. Determination compared to satisfaction and neutral facial expressions caused greater relative left frontal activity relative to baseline EEG recordings. Facial expressions did not directly influence task persistence. However, relative left frontal activity correlated positively with persistence on insolvable tasks in the determination condition. These results extend embodiment theories and motivational interpretations of relative left frontal activity.