EFFECTS OF DISCRETE POSITIVE EMOTIONS ON REASONING

Abstract

Current research has provided ample evidence for the positive associations between interest and cognition. However, the specificity of interest’s effects on cognition and the causal relationship between interest and reasoning have been largely unexplored. Thus, this study hopes to examine the effects of induced interest on reasoning, hypothesising that induced interest should improve reasoning ability as compared to induced pride, induced gratitude, and a neutral state. A pilot study was conducted to determine syllogism difficulty levels in our population and to select moderately difficult syllogisms. For the main study, Prolific participants were recruited and instructed to complete a recall task to induce the targeted emotions. They then completed the syllogistic reasoning task, a validated reasoning measure. Surprisingly, no significant differences in reasoning ability were found between conditions, indicating that beneficial effects of interest found in prior studies probably do not extend to reasoning. While no conclusions can be made about the functional specificities of positive emotions, the findings do support an emerging line of research that found that positive emotions do not always lead to positive outcomes. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.