In the Mood for Adaptation: How Affect Regulates Conflict-Driven Control

Cognitive conflict plays an important role in tuning cognitive control to the situation at hand. On the basis of earlier findings demonstrating emotional modulations of conflict processing, we predicted that affective states may adaptively regulate goaldirected behavior that is driven by conflict. W...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychological science Vol. 21; no. 11; pp. 1629 - 1634
Main Authors van Steenbergen, Henk, Band, Guido P.H., Hommel, Bernhard
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.11.2010
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Adaptation
Adaptation, Psychological
Adolescent
Adult
Affect
Anxiety
Arousal
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive psychology
Color Perception
Conflict
Conflict (Psychology)
Conflicts
Depression
Emotional stability
Emotional states
Emotions
Error rates
Experimentation
Female
Happiness
Humans
Induction
Male
Mood
Mood disorders
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Pleasure
Problem Solving
Psychopathology
Reaction Time
Research Reports
Semantics
Serenity
Stroop Test
Young Adult
cognitive control
mood induction
cognitive dissonance
cognitive conflict
conflict adaptation
affect
neurotransmitters
depression
dopamine
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Summary:Cognitive conflict plays an important role in tuning cognitive control to the situation at hand. On the basis of earlier findings demonstrating emotional modulations of conflict processing, we predicted that affective states may adaptively regulate goaldirected behavior that is driven by conflict. We tested this hypothesis by measuring conflict-driven control adaptations following experimental induction of four different mood states that could be differentiated along the dimensions of arousal and pleasure. After mood states were induced, 91 subjects performed a flanker task, which provided a measure of conflict adaptation. As predicted, pleasure level affected conflict adaptation: Less pleasure was associated with more conflict-driven control. Arousal level did not influence conflict adaptation. This study suggests that affect adaptively regulates cognitive control. Implications for future research and psychopathology are discussed.
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ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797610385951