The Influence of Negative Self-Conscious Emotions on Attentional Scope
Open Access
- Author:
- Haynes, Elise
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- May 25, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Karen Gasper, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Reginald Adams, Jr., Committee Member
Kristin Buss (She/Her), Program Head/Chair
Bradley Paul Wyble, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Shame
Guilt
Emotion
Attentional Scope - Abstract:
- This project tests three predominant theories about how affect influences attentional scope: the affect-as-information account, the motivational intensity model, and the affect-as-cognitive feedback account. These theories propose different mechanisms to explain how affect alters attention, including valence or approach/avoidance orientations, motivational intensity, and reliance on accessible processing style, respectively. Empirical work testing these views has focused primarily on emotions such as anger, disgust, and sadness. The self-conscious emotions, and specifically shame and guilt, have been left out of this discourse. This work tested these three theories by applying them to shame and guilt. Specifically, respondents completed a priming task designed to increase the accessibility of either global or local processing strategies, and then completed a mood induction designed to induce shame or guilt. Afterwards, they completed a measure of attentional scope to determine if global or local attentional strategies predominated. Experiment 1 revealed findings consistent with affect-as-information theory, in that the avoidance emotion, shame, promoted faster local processing than the approach emotion, guilt. Experiment 1, however, had some issues in that the effects appeared only on local, not global, trials and that the mood manipulation could be improved upon. Experiment 2 was designed with these weaknesses in mind but had to be moved out of the lab due to the pandemic. This change in procedure, as well as other changes, unintentionally created a variety of problems, and the study supported none of the predictions. Because of the problematic nature of Experiment 2, it does not adequately address how shame and guilt might influence attentional scope. Given these issues, the data at best tentatively support the affect-as-information account (Experiment 1).