The persistent use of negative affect by anxious ... - Semantic Scholar

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1998, Vol. 74, No- 5, 1350-1363

Copyright 1998 by the, American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/9S/$3.00

The Persistent Use of Negative Affect by Anxious Individuals to Estimate Risk Karen Gasper and Gerald L. Clore University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Three experiments investigated how trait anxiety would influence individuals' assumptions about the relevance of their experiences of state anxiety for judgments of risk. Experiment 1 found that attributions of state anxiety to a judgment-irrelevant source reduced the risk estimates of low, but not of high, trait-anxious individuals. The results of Experiment 2 suggest that attribution manipulations reduce the influence of state affect on judgment only when the state affect is inconsistent with participants' trait affect. Experiment 3 revealed that these effects can be controlled by explicitly manipulating participants' assumptions about the relevance of their feelings. Regardless of the level of trait anxiety, attributions were effective at reducing mood effects when facts, but not feelings, were assumed to be the relevant basis for judgment. Overall, the results suggest that trait-consistent affect is more readily assumed to be informative and hence is more likely to be relied on than traitinconsistent affect.

Affective states are temporary experiences of mood or emotion, and affective traits are chronic dispositions to have such experiences. Numerous studies have demonstrated that mood states can influence judgments in mood-congruent directions (Butler & Mathews, 1987; Forgas & Bower, 1988; Johnson & Tversky, 1983; Salovey & Birnbaum, 1989; Schwarz & Clore, 1983). However, few have examined the role of trait affect in the process. In this research, we investigated how trait anxiety would influence people's use of state anxiety when making judgments of risk. To do this, we provided some participants with an explanation for their anxious feelings. This manipulation was designed to make feelings seem irrelevant, and it is usually effective in eliminating affect influences. Of primary interest was whether chronically anxious individuals would discount their anxious feelings as readily as less anxious individuals. We predicted that they would not and more generally proposed that when state affect is consistent with trait affect, it would seem more broadly relevant and be used more in judgment than when it is inconsistent with trait affect.

judgments when they are experienced as providing judgmentrelevant information. When making evaluative judgments, people often ask themselves, "How do I feel about it?" At that point, any available affective cues may influence judgment. The critical factor is whether they are experienced as reactions to the object of judgment. Thus, getting participants to attribute their feelings to irrelevant situational factors should reduce or eliminate affective influences (Keltner, Locke, & Audrain, 1993). For example, Schwarz and Clore (1983, Study 1) found that individuals who wrote about a negative life event said they were less satisfied with their lives than those who wrote about a positive life event. This difference was eliminated, however, when participants were induced to attribute their affect to the aversive qualities of the experimental room. Keltner et al. replicated these findings and demonstrated that affective influences on judgment were maintained or amplified when individuals attributed their affective state to a judgment-relevant source, such as being due to their life in general. Thus, assumptions about the relevance of one's feelings determines whether they will have an influence on any given judgment.

State Affect According to the affect-as-information view (Clore, 1992; Schwarz & Clore, 1983, 1988, 1996), affective cues influence

Trait Affect, State Affect, and Informational Relevance The apparent informational value of affective cues may also be influenced by chronic affective differences. The more people experience a particular kind of affect, the more fully they may rely on it as a source of valid information. For example, hightrait-anxious individuals have an attentional bias toward threatening information (Broadbent & Broadbent, 1988; MacLeod & Cohen, 1993; Mathews & MacLeod, 1985; see Mathews & MacLeod, 1994, for a review). They are more likely than are lowtrait-anxious individuals to notice and to rely on cues that signal danger. They respond faster to threat-relevant stimuli (Broadbent & Broadbent, 1988), interpret ambiguous stimuli in a more threat-relevant manner (MacLeod & Cohen, 1993), and believe that negative events are more likely to happen to them (Butler & Mathews, 1987). Low- and high-trait-anxious individuals also tend to make

Karen Gasper and Gerald L. Clore, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The research described in and the writing of this article were supported by National Science Foundation Grant SBR 93-11970, by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 50074, and by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Grant 32005-0. We wish to acknowledge Robert Wyer and the members of the Affect Group for their valuable advice on this project. We also thank Dominic Mariano, Mike Butler, Risa Gottlieb, Jennifer Hedrick, Laura Harmon, and Emmiline Hsueh for their help in data collection. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Karen Gasper, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 East Daniel Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820. Electronic mail may be sent to kgasper @ s.psych.uiuc.edu. 1350

NEGATIVE AFFECT, TRAIT ANXIETY, AND RISK

different attributions for their feelings. Individuals scoring high on measures of anxiety and depression tend to view their negative feelings as being attributable to stable and general sources, whereas low-trait-anxious individuals tend to view such feelings as being attributable to temporary and specific sources (Abramson, Metaisky, & Alloy, 1989; Ahrens & Haaga, 1993). These differences in reactions to threat cues should affect how individuals view the informational value of their anxious feelings. Specifically, high-trait-anxious individuals may rely on momentary anxious feelings more than low-trait-anxious individuals because such familiar, trait-consistent affect may be congruent with their expectations and may seem more relevant than affect that is trait inconsistent. Evidence that trait affect can influence reliance on state affect comes from a study by Smith and Petty (1995). They found that whether negative mood produced mood-congruent or moodincongruent recall depended on participants' levels of self-esteem. It seems likely that the trait consistency of negative affect for low-esteem participants made them rely on it as a retrieval cue, whereas the trait inconsistency for high-esteem participants made them discount the negative affect so that they retrieved contrasting memories. In the anxiety domain, MacLeod and Mathews (1988, cited in Mathews, 1988; Mathews & MacLeod, 1994) found that elevated state anxiety increased attention to threat words for high-, but not low-, trait-anxious participants. In keeping with the affect-as-information approach, we propose that trait affect may influence the apparent informativeness of state affective cues. Different predictions flow from accounts based on network models that assume that mood primes related concepts in memory (Bower, 1981; Forgas & Bower, 1988; Isen, 1984). Such models imply that trait affect should combine with state affect to increase the activation of affect-congruent memories and concepts. Thus, the judgments of high-trait-anxious individuals may be influenced more by state anxiety than those of low-trait-anxious individuals because more anxiety-relevant information would be activated in memory. We propose, however, that it is not the activation of affect-congruent constructs but the assumptions about the informational value of affective experience that govern mood effects on judgment (Clore & Parrott, 1991; Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994). To test this hypothesis, we needed a situation in which individuals' assumptions about the apparent relevance of affective experiences could be varied while holding the level of state affect constant. State and Trait Affect and the Use of Attributions An attribution paradigm offers one way of manipulating the apparent relevance of affective information (e.g., Schwarz & Clore, 1983). Suggesting to individuals that their affect may be irrelevant creates a situation in which individuals can question the relevance of their affective cues, but their affective experiences are not altered. If individuals tend to perceive trait-consistent affect as being more informative than trait-inconsistent affect, then this assumption should make attributional discounting less effective for trait-consistent than trait-inconsistent states, for individuals should be less likely to question the relevance of feelings that are consistent with their cognitive outlook. Attribution manipulations should be able either to decrease or increase mood effects depending on whether they identify a specific mood source (which makes feelings appear to be of

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limited relevance) or a general mood source (which makes feelings appear to be broadly relevant; Keltner et al., 1993). If high-trait-anxious individuals are more likely to attribute their negative feelings to a generally relevant source, and low-traitanxious individuals are more likely to attribute their negative feelings to a specific source (Abramson et al., 1989; Ahrens & Haaga, 1993), then these groups also may differ in how they interpret the implications of the attribution statements. Lowtrait-anxious individuals may assume that attributional suggestions imply that their feelings are attributable to a specific irrelevant source, whereas high-trait-anxious individuals may assume that they imply that their feelings are attributable to a generally relevant source. For example, if individuals were led to attribute their anxiety to concern about an upcoming examination, that attribution might limit the apparent relevance of the feelings for low-trait-anxious individuals but broaden their apparent relevance for high-trait-anxious individuals. Such an interpretation may increase the attention of anxious people to their affect and lead them to make more extreme judgments. Thus, attributions for trait-consistent feelings may fail to decrease mood effects and could even increase them. Previous research suggests that the effectiveness of attribution manipulations in mood studies may depend on participants' affective expectations. Schwarz and Clore (1983) found that attempts to lead participants to attribute their feelings to an irrelevant source were effective in reducing the influence of negative affect but that they had no effect on the influence of positive affect on judgments of life satisfaction. As it happens, most individuals report moderately high levels of chronic positive affect (Diener & Diener, 1996). The trait consistency of positive mood for most participants in the Schwarz and Clore study may explain why the attribution manipulation was ineffective at reducing its influence. However, as far as we know, there is no direct evidence that chronic affect plays such a role. The asymmetry in Schwarz and Clore's (1983) results could have been due, for example, to general desires to discount negative, but not positive, affective information. Thus, it is possible that everyone may discount negative affect regardless of whether they are high or low in chronic negative affect. We conducted three experiments to determine whether hightrait-anxious individuals would rely more than low-trait-anxious individuals on their state anxiety when judging risks. Judgments of risks were used because prior research has shown that such estimates are influenced by anxiety (Butler & Mathews, 1983, 1987; Constans & Mathews, 1993, Study 1; Johnson & Tversky, 1983). In the first experiment we tested whether trait anxiety would influence the role of state anxiety in judgments. We predicted that providing an attribution for anxious feelings should reduce the influence of anxiety on judgments of risk for low-, but not high-, trait-anxious individuals. The second experiment extended the results to positive and negative affective states that were induced experimentally. We designed the final experiment to clarify the conditions that may promote and inhibit the use of affective information by directly manipulating and assessing participants' assumptions about the relevance of their affect. Throughout these experiments, we tested whether differences in trait anxiety would contribute to individuals' assumptions about the relevance of the information provided by their state anxiety. These assumptions, in turn, are believed to influence

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how individuals respond to indications that their anxious feelings may be irrelevant. Experiment 1 In this experiment we examined whether high-trait-anxious participants would rely on the information provided by their momentary anxiety to a greater extent when estimating risk than would low-trait-anxious participants. We placed participants in an anxious state by conducting the study immediately before final-examination week, a time that increases nervousness and tension (Butler & Mathews, 1987; Kendall, Finch, Averbach, Hooke, & Mikulka, 1976). Half of the respondents were reminded that their anxious feelings could be due to the examinations, which should make them seem irrelevant to non—examination-related judgments. All participants were then asked to estimate the likelihood of various personal and impersonal risks. Previous research suggests that judgments of personally relevant risks might be more influenced by anxiety than judgments of impersonal risks (Butler & Mathews, 1983, 1987). This is because trait-anxious individuals' attentional bias may be more sensitive to self-relevant than other-relevant threats (Greenberg, Vazquez, & Alloy, 1988). After the risk estimates, we assessed respondents' state and trait anxiety. We hypothesized, first, that high-trait-anxious individuals should estimate more risk than low-trait-anxious individuals. Second, attributions that call into question the relevance of anxious feelings should reduce risk estimates made by low-traitanxious individuals more than those made by high-trait-anxious individuals, because individuals should rely on affect that is trait inconsistent less than affect that is trait consistent. Finally, judgments of personally relevant risks might be more influenced by anxiety than judgments of impersonally relevant risks.

Method Participants The participants were 113 students enrolled in an introductory personality psychology class. Two respondents were dropped from the analyses because of anomalous or missing data, leaving 46 men and 65 women.

Materials and Procedure The study was conducted on the last day of class before final-examination week. Students were randomly assigned to attribution and no-attribution conditions. Participants in the attribution condition answered the following true-false questions designed to get them to attribute their current feelings of anxiety to the upcoming examinations: (a) When I think about taking final examinations, I can detect feelings of tenseness, anxiety, or nervousness, (b) I think that any feelings of anxiety or concern I feel at the present come mainly from thinking about final examinations, (c) Without final examinations coming up, I would probably not feel tense or nervous right now. They then completed the risk questionnaire. Participants in the no-attribution condition did not receive the true-false items and started with the risk questionnaire. The risk questionnaire asked students to estimate the likelihood of 5 personal and 5 impersonal negative events on a scale ranging from 0 (extremely unlikely) to 10 (extremely likely). The personal risk items asked about the likelihood of personally relevant negative events, such as having something stolen, doing something embarrassing, saying something idiotic, getting into a conflict with parents, and having friends talk behind one's back. The impersonal risk items asked about increases in

the likelihood of negative societal events, specifically the starvation crisis in Africa, police violence (the Rodney King incident), the AIDS death rate, tension between the United States and Germany or Japan, and disasters created by poor city maintenance.1 After the risk questionnaire, participants filled out the State-Ttait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970). Participants were classified as either low or high in trait anxiety on the basis of a mean split.

Results Risk Estimates To determine whether the attribution manipulation would reduce the influence of anxiety in judgments made by low-, but not high-, trait-anxious individuals, a 2 (attribution: none vs. attribution) X 2 (trait anxiety: low vs. high) X 2 (risk type: personal vs. impersonal) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed with personal and impersonal risk as a repeated measures variable. Consistent with previous research (Butler & Mathews, 1987), high-trait-anxious individuals (M = 5.60, SD = 1.35) estimated more total risk than did low-trait-anxious individuals (M = 4.55, SD = 1.22), as indicated by a trait anxiety main effect, F(\, 107) = 18.58, p < .01. Impersonal risks (M - 5.66, SD = 1.31) also were thought to be more likely than personal risks (M = 4.48, SD = 1.89). This main effect for risk type was significant, F ( l , 107) = 49.25, p < .001. Additionally, risk type interacted with trait anxiety, F ( l , 107) = 9.5, p < .01. Low-trait-anxious participants believed that impersonal risks (M — 5.37, SD — 1.32) were more likely to occur than personal risks (M = 3.72, SD = 1.61), whereas high-trait-anxious participants did not make such a differentiation (impersonal, M = 5.92, SD = 1.25; personal, M = 5.28, SD = 1.88). Thus, trait anxiety differences were more apparent in judgments of personal risk than impersonal risk. The data relevant to the hypothesis concerning how trait anxiety may influence the use of state anxiety are shown in Table 1. As predicted, the risk estimates of low-trait-anxious participants were reduced when their anxiety was attributed to a judgmentirrelevant source (no attribution, M = 4.89; attribution, M = 4.21, p < .05), whereas the risk estimates of high-trait-anxious participants were not (no attribution, M = 5.46; attribution, M = 5.73). This Trait Anxiety X Attribution interaction was statistically significant, F ( l , 107) = 3.82, p = .05. Also, this effect was similar for personal and impersonal risk estimates, as indicated by the lack of a Trait Anxiety X Attribution x Risk Type interaction (F < 1). Thus, reminding participants that thenanxious feelings could be attributable to an irrelevant source was an effective means of reducing affective influences that were trait inconsistent (low-trait-anxious individuals), but not those that were trait consistent (high-trait-anxious individuals).

1 A principal-components factor analysis, using a separate sample of participants, was conducted on responses to a similar scale. When a varimax rotation was used, all of the items loaded .4 or higher on their expected personal or impersonal risk factors. The coefficient alpha for the entire scale was .71. We asked about poor city maintenance because the Chicago River had recently flooded the city's underground tunnel system.

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Table 1 Mean Personal and Impersonal Risk Estimates for Low- and High-Trait-Anxious Individuals by Attribution Condition in Experiment 1 Low trait anxiety Risk type

High trait anxiety

No attribution (n = 34)

Attribution (n = 26)



4.17 1.37

3.27 1.79

5.20 1.79

5.35 1.96

5.61 1.08

5.14 1.57

5.72 1.35

6.11 1.17

4.89 0.99

4.21 1.39

5.46 1.42

5.73 1.30

Personal M SD Impersonal U SD Overall M SD

State Anxiety One possible explanation for these findings is that the attribution statements reduced the state anxiety of low-, but not high-, trait-anxious individuals. Hence, current affect, and not assumptions about affect, could explain the results. A 2 (attribution) X 2 (trait anxiety) ANOVA on state anxiety scores showed that, although high-trait-anxious individuals {M = 48.05, SD = 11.98) reported more state anxiety than did low-trait-anxious individuals (M = 36.16, SD = 7.66), F ( l , 107) = 38.35, p < .01, reminding individuals about the upcoming examinations did not influence state anxiety (Fs < 1). Thus, the attribution statements influenced the perceived relevance, but not the actual levels, of state anxiety.

Discussion Results of this experiment indicate that trait anxiety influenced how state anxiety was used as information. High-traitanxious individuals estimated more risk than did low-trait-anxious individuals. This effect, however, depended on whether state anxiety was attributable to a judgment-relevant or judgmentirrelevant source. Consistent with the logic of the affect-asinformation approach (Clore, 1992; Schwarz & Clore, 1983, 1988, 1996), low-trait-anxious individuals capitalized on the opportunity to attribute their state anxiety to an irrelevant source and estimated less risk than those for whom no such attribution was made salient. By contrast, high-trait-anxious individuals assumed that their anxiety was informative and estimated the same amount of risk regardless of attribution condition. If anything, the presence of an attribution tended to increase their estimates. Thus, attributions are effective in reducing affective influences when they are trait inconsistent, but not when they are trait consistent. One alternative explanation for these results is that low- and high-trait-anxious individuals may have responded differently to the stress of final-examination week. Trait anxiety may have resulted in greater worry about final examinations, which may have raised the state anxiety of high anxious individuals more than low-anxious individuals. Perhaps the attribution manipulation was adequate to explain the small change in anxiety experi-

enced by low-trait-anxious participants, but not the greater change in anxiety experienced by high-trait-anxious participants. If this were the case, then changes in state anxiety, not assumptions about its meaning, could account for the results. Because we depended on naturally occurring state anxiety, this factor was relatively uncontrolled. It is not clear that the same differential reliance on anxious feelings would appear if they were manipulated in the laboratory. Therefore, in Experiment 2, moods were induced in high- and low-trait-anxious participants to determine whether a similar difference in resistance to attribution manipulations would still be observed.

Experiment 2 In Experiment 2 we examined how low- and high-trait-anxious individuals would use negative and positive affect induced in the laboratory. Mood was manipulated by having participants write about either a negative or a positive life event. Afterward, half of the respondents received an attribution manipulation reminding them that thinking about the event could have contributed to their feelings. In negative moods, this attribution should reduce the apparent relevance of unpleasant feelings and decrease risk estimations. In positive moods, this attribution should reduce the apparent relevance of pleasant feelings and increase risk estimations. Although negative affect should be trait inconsistent for lowanxious individuals and trait consistent for high-anxious individuals, the converse may not he true for positive affect. Mounting evidence suggests that positive and negative affect are separable dimensions (Watson, Clark, & lellegen, 1988; Watson & Tellegen, 1985). As a result, it is possible that both low- and hightrait-anxious individuals may find positive feelings to be trait consistent. Previous research supports this assumption, for high levels of trait anxiety tend to be correlated with the presence of negative affect, not with an absence of positive affect (Ahrens & Haaga, 1993; Watson, Clark, & Carey, 1988; Watson & Kendall, 1989). Also, trait-anxious individuals have an attentional bias to rely on threat-relevant information, not to discredit positive information. This suggests that trait-anxious participants may find both positive and negative affective cues to be trait consistent, whereas low-trait-anxious individuals may find only positive affective cues to be trait consistent. Therefore, we predicted that attributions designed to call into question the relevance of one's feelings should decrease the role of affect that is trait inconsistent more than affect that is trait consistent. In fact, attributions designed to draw attention to affect that is trait consistent could even make the affect appear more relevant and increase its role in judgments. When respondents are in a negative mood, attribution manipulations should decrease risk estimates for low- but not high-trait-anxious participants. In a positive mood, attribution manipulations may be ineffective, failing to increase risk estimates for both groups. Additionally, random assignment to mood condition allowed us to determine whether trait differences in susceptibility to affective experiences could account for the differential effectiveness of the attribution manipulations.

Method Participants Participants were randomly selected students from introductory psychology classes. They received course credit for participating in the

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study. The data were collected in two experimental waves. R>ur participants were dropped because of incomplete data or failure to follow instructions. This left 31 men and 34 women in the first wave and 45 men and 43 women in the second wave.

Materials and Procedure The experiment was conducted in a large laboratory space containing nine small rooms. An experimenter told participants that the study was about how personality differences might affect college students' perceptions. She directed each participant to a separate room with instructions to complete several personality questionnaires. These questionnaires were placed at the beginning to try to stabilize some of the initial variance in participants' moods by having them focus on a similar task. After the personality measures, mood was manipulated by having participants describe either a positive or negative personal life event (Schwarz & Clore, 1983). Participants were instructed to describe a recent life event as vividly as possible and to include details of what they were feeling and thinking. They thought that they would have 15 min to write their stories, but in fact diey had only 9 min. It was thought that if they believed plenty of time was available, they would write more involving stories. After the mood manipulation, participants in the attribution condition were asked to indicate their degree of agreement with three statements. In the positive mood condition the statements were as follows: (a) When I think about the event I just recalled, I feel at least some pleasantness, (b) Some of my current feelings of pleasantness may have come from thinking about the event I just recalled, (c) Without having recalled the event, I might not feel as pleasant right now. In the negative mood condition, the statements were the same except "pleasantness" was replaced with "unpleasantness." All participants tfien filled out the risk questionnaire described in Experiment 1, die STA1, and other personality

Results All analyses were originally done with experimental wave as a variable. No significant or consequential interactions were found to occur with wave, and the following analyses were done collapsing across it.

Trait Anxiety To determine whether the mood induction or the attribution manipulation influenced trait anxiety scores, we performed a 2 (mood) x 2 (attribution) ANO\A on them. As intended, neither manipulation influenced self-reported trait anxiety (ps > .15). The high- and low-trait-anxiety groups were then established using a mean split.

Mood Manipulation Check To assess the effectiveness of the mood manipulation, we performed a 2 (mood) x 2 (attribution) X 2 (trait anxiety) ANOV\ on the state anxiety scores. The mood manipulation was effective, as indicated by higher reports of anxiety after writing a negative story (M = 41.56, SD = 10.73) than a positive story (M = 38.60, SD = 9.85), F ( l , 144) = 4.29,p < .05. In addition, high-trait-anxious participants (M = 46.06, SD = 9.29) reported more state anxiety than did low-trait-anxious participants (M = 34.10, SD = 7.97), as indicated by a trait anxiety main effect, F( 1,144) = 69.95, p < .000. Finally, hightrait-anxious individuals were not more responsive to the mood

induction than low-trait-anxious individuals, as indicated by the lack of a significant Mood X Trait Anxiety interaction, F ( l , 144) = 1.17. Consequently, it is unlikely that any differences in risk estimates were due to high-trait-anxious individuals having a greater change in state anxiety than low-trait-anxious individuals.

Risk Estimates A 2 (mood) X 2 (attribution) X 2 (trait anxiety) X 2 (risk type) ANOVA was performed with the personal and impersonal risk estimates as repeated measures. As in Experiment 1, lowtrait-anxious individuals (M = 5.21, SD - 1.22) estimated less risk than high-trait-anxious individuals (Af = 5.95, SD = 1.29), F ( l , 145) = 12.57, p < .01. Impersonal risks (M = 6.08, SD = 1,41) also were seen as being more likely than personal risks (M = 4.84, SD = 1.74), F ( l , 145) = 56.90, p < .001. In addition, low-trait-anxious individuals again tended to rate impersonal risks {M = 5.93, SD = 1.42) as being more likely than personal risks (Af — 4.50, SD - 1.62), whereas hightrait-anxious individuals were less likely to distinguish between impersonal (M = 6.39, SD = 1.38) and personal (Af = 5.50, SD = 1.77) risks. This Trait Anxiety X Risk Type interaction was marginally significant, F ( l , 145) = 3.17,p < .08. The mood manipulation affected risk estimates through an interaction with trait anxiety, F ( l , 145) = 4.96, p < .03. The data indicate that high-trait-anxious individuals used the information provided by their negative affective state as a basis for judgment (negative mood, M = 6.27, SD = 0.97; positive mood, M = 5.62, SD = 1.39, p < .04), whereas low-trait-anxious individuals did not (negative mood, M = 5.08, SD = 1.35; positive mood, M — 5.35, SD ~ 1.03, ns). The data relevant to our hypothesis concerning the role of attributions in risk estimates are presented in Table 2. Regardless of the mood condition, the attribution manipulation reduced risk estimates for low-anxious individuals (no attribution, M = 5.49; attribution, M = 4.94, p < .04), but not for high-trait-anxious individuals (no attribution, M = 5.83; attribution, M = 6.06, ns), as indicated by a Trait Anxiety X Attribution interaction, F( 1, 145) = 3.56, p = .06. Contrary to Experiment 1, the effect depended on risk type, F ( l , 145) = 4 . 1 3 , / J < .05. It appeared on personal risk estimates, F( 1, 145) = 6,43, p < .02, but not on impersonal risk estimates ( F < 1).

Discussion Across mood conditions, attributional statements reduced risk estimates for low-, but not for high-, trait-anxious participants. One interpretation of these results is in terms of a greater tendency to rely on trait-consistent than trait-inconsistent affect. For low-anxious individuals, attribution statements reduced the role of negative (trait-inconsistent) feelings, but not of positive (trait-consistent) feelings. For high-trait-anxious participants, the attribution statements did not influence the use of either

2 Two items on the risk questionnaire were changed to capitalize on more current events. The risk item concerning poor city maintenance and the item about tension between the United States and Japan or Germany were replaced with items concerning the likelihood of natural disasters and the United States getting involved in Bosnia (a = .69).

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Table 2 Mean Personal and Impersonal Risk Estimates for Low- and High-Trait-Anxious Participants by Attribution Condition in Experiment 2 Low trait anxiety Risk type

High trait anxiety

No attribution (« = 39)




4.93 1.42

4.06 1.68

5.24 1.70

5.77 1.81

6.05 1.25

5.81 1.55

6.43 1.49

6.35 1.29

5.49 1.00

4.94 1.33

5.83 1.39

6.06 1.15

Personal

M

SD Impersonal M. SD Overall M SD

positive or negative (both trait-consistent) feelings. Overall, the data indicate that attributions were effective at reducing mood effects only when they were inconsistent with individuals' affective expectations. In this experiment, we also found that high-trait-anxious individuals estimated more risk after a negative than a positive mood induction, whereas low-trait-anxious individuals did not. Although we did not find this effect in Experiment 1? it is again consistent with the idea that people rely more on trait-consistent than trait-inconsistent affect. As indicated earlier, we assumed that high-trait-anxious participants found both positive and negative moods to be trait consistent As a result, they relied on both moods as a basis for judgment, estimating greater risk in a negative mood and lesser risk in a positive mood. Low-traitanxious individuals, however, should have found the negative mood manipulation to be trait inconsistent. As a result, they apparently avoided using it as a basis for judgment, estimating no more risk after a negative than after a positive mood induction. Interestingly, even though low-trait-anxious individuals tended to avoid using their negative mood as a basis for judgment, they still used the attributions as a means to further reduce their risk estimates. Thus, low-trait-anxious individuals appeared to have used every opportunity to reduce the influence of trait-inconsistent information. Another interesting facet of the data was that reminding lowtrait-anxious individuals of their positive feelings tended to reduce, rather than increase, their risk estimates. One plausible explanation is that low-trait-anxious individuals interpreted the attributional statements as implying that their positive feelings were relevant. For example, they may have interpreted the statements as implying that their positive feelings were attributable to their wonderful lives rather than merely to the act of writing about a specific event in their lives. Consequently, their feelings seemed even more relevant and their risk estimates decreased. This amplification effect, however, was not found for high-traitanxious participants, who also should have found positive affect to be trait consistent. It may be that positive affect is consistent with both group's expectations but that low-trait-anxious participants have a stronger expectation of positive affect and rely on it more than high-trait-anxious participants. Besides the attribution amplifying positive mood effects for low-trait-anxious

participants, there also was a nonsignificant trend for it to amplify negative mood effects for high-trait-anxious individuals (similar to Experiment 1). These findings suggest that it would be worthwhile to examine how individuals interpret the implications of the attributional statements for affect that is trait inconsistent versus trait consistent. This step was undertaken in the next experiment. The results of this experiment cast doubt on the hypothesis that trait differences in response to the attribution manipulation really were attributable to differences in state anxiety. The results show that both groups were equally responsive to the mood manipulation. Thus, it was not the case that attributions had to account for a greater increase in anxiety for high-trait-anxious than for low-trait-anxious participants. A related possibility, however, is that the effect reflected differences in the absolute levels (rather than changes) in state anxiety. High-trait-anxious individuals tend to experience higher levels of state anxiety than low-trait-anxious individuals. Perhaps once individuals pass a certain threshold level of state anxiety, any situational attribution would be inadequate to explain away their feelings. Given that trait anxiety usually covaries with state anxiety, this hypothesis cannot readily be assessed by equating state anxiety. It can, however, be addressed using a different technique. We believe that individuals' assumptions about the relevance of their affect, and not their levels of affect, guide whether affect will be used in judgment. Thus, if we can change individuals' assumptions about the relevance of their feelings, then it should be possible to reverse the attribution effects. That is, we should be able to set up a situation in which attributions are effective in reducing risk estimates of high-traitanxious individuals and ineffective at reducing risk estimates of low-trait-anxious individuals. If this were possible, then it would demonstrate that individuals' responses to attribution manipulations depend on their assumptions about their affect, not on their actual level of affect. This was the goal of Experiment 3. In summary, the momentary feelings of high- and low-traitanxious individuals were equally affected by the mood induction. Negative mood increased risk estimates only for highanxious individuals, but situational attributions for their anxiety lowered risk estimates only for low-anxious individuals. The results suggest a propensity for high- and low-anxious participants to differ both in their initial use of anxious feelings and in their persistence in using them in the face of evidence of their irrelevance. Low-anxious individuals took every opportunity to reduce the influence of negative affect, whereas high-anxious individuals did not.

Experiment 3 Experiment 3 was designed to determine more about the processes by which trait anxiety influences one's reliance on affective experiences. As in Experiment 1, negative mood was the focus, but we made four additional changes. First, if low- and high-trait-anxious individuals differ in their default assumptions about the relevance of state anxiety, then changing these assumptions should affect how they respond to attribution manipulations. Specifically, trait differences in response to attribution manipulations should disappear when all participants share the same assumptions about the relevance of their feelings. We manipulated participants' assumptions by

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instructing them to use either their feelings or a more factual basis for judgment. In the feeling instruction condition, individuals should rely on their affect, and attributions should not decrease mood effects. In the fact instruction condition, individuals should avoid using their feelings, and attributions should further decrease mood effects. If these findings occur, they would suggest that individuals' assumptions about the relevance of state anxiety, rather than differences in levels of state anxiety, underlie the results. Second, to understand more about how trait anxiety influences one's response to the attribution statements, we manipulated the type of attribution being presented. In Experiments 1 and 2, the attributions made a source of affect salient that was self-relevant (examinations or a life event). Research suggests that highly self-relevant stimuli may engage an individual's cognitive schemas more than less self-relevant stimuli (Butler & Mathews, 1983; Greenberg et al., 1988). Tf so, chronic differences in assumptions about the relevance of one's feelings may be more apparent when available attributions concern personally relevant causes for the feelings (e.g., aspects of one's life) than when they identify an impersonal cause (e.g., the experimental task). To test this hypothesis, we varied the self-relevance of the possible causes of affect. To learn more about participants' interpretations of the attributional statements, we devised the Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire. Among other things, it asked whether individuals thought that the attributions provided a sufficient explanation for their feelings. Even if everyone were to find the proposed sources of affect plausible, some may not find them sufficient to explain their feelings. In a similar way, individuals could find a persuasive argument to be a plausible, but not an adequate basis for changing their opinion. It seems likely that the more participants focused on their feelings, the less adequate any one explanation would seem. Hence, we expected individuals instructed to focus on their feelings to rate the attribution statements provided as being less adequate explanations for their feelings than those instructed to focus on facts. The questionnaire also assessed whether individuals would interpret the statements as implying that their feelings were relevant or irrelevant to their general situation. If trait-anxious individuals generally assume that anxious feelings are relevant, they also may interpret the attributions as implying such relevance more than do low-trait-anxious individuals. Also, if trait differences in anxiety are more likely to be evident in personally relevant than nonpersonal situations, then trait anxiety should influence the interpretation of the personal (life) attribution more than the impersonal (task) attribution. Finally, we examined how trait anxiety would influence positive and negative risk estimates. Butler and Mathews (1987) found that, when stressed, high-trait-anxious individuals believe that negative events are more likely and positive events less likely than do low-trait-anxious individuals. Attribution manipulations, however, may not influence estimates of positive and negative events in the same manner. For instance, individuals may not consult their negative feelings when judging positive events. As a result, attribution manipulations may influence the role of negative affect in negative judgments, but not positive judgments. In summary, in this experiment we assessed whether changes in the apparent relevance of affective information through attri-

bution and instruction manipulations would influence the risk estimates of low- and high-trait-anxious individuals. We expected that attributions would be effective in reducing mood effects when participants were instructed to rely on facts as a basis for judgment, but not when instructed to rely on feelings. We also provided participants with attributions implying that their feelings were attributable to either a personally important source (their life) or a nonpersonal source (the mood induction task). Because trait-anxious individuals tend to be tuned into personally relevant threat information, we expected that trait anxiety would have a greater effect on responses to personal than to nonpersonal attributions. Specifically, the life attribution manipulation should reduce risk estimates for low-, but not high-, trait-anxious individuals, whereas the task attribution should show less differentiated effects. The valence of the events to be estimated also was varied to determine whether anxiety, attributions, and risk instructions would influence judgments of positive events in the same manner as judgments of negative events. Finally, the Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire allowed a further test of whether assumptions about the relevance of feelings guide affect use.

Method Participants Participants were randomly selected from introductory psychology classes. Two respondents were dropped because of incomplete data or suspiciously extreme responses, leaving 54 men and 61 women.

Materials and Procedure All procedures were the same as those outlined in Experiment 2 unless otherwise noted. In privacy, participants completed several personality measures and then wrote about a recent personal event that made them feel very "anxious and negative." Participants then were exposed to one of three attribution conditions. In the personal (life) attribution condition, they answered questions designed to get them to attribute their current feelings to their personal life experiences. They were instructed to indicate their agreement with three statements about how things in their life might have made them feel negative on a scale labeled true, possibly true, and false. The statements were as follows: (a) Because of the negative event in my life, and remembering it, I feel at least some unpleasantness, (b) Some of my current feelings of unpleasantness may have come from thinking about the personal negative event that has happened to me. (c) If the event had not happened to me, I might not feel as unpleasant right now. In the impersonal (task) attribution condition, participants answered questions designed to get them to attribute their current feelings to the experimental task of writing a negative story. They were asked to indicate their agreement with three statements concerning how the experimental task might have made them feel negative. The statements were as follows: (a) Because the task required me to recall something negative, I feel at least some unpleasantness. (b)Some of my current feelings of unpleasantness may have come from being asked to focus on something negative, (c) If the experimenter had not asked me to do a relatively negative task, I might not feel as unpleasant right now. Respondents in the no-attribution condition did not receive any attribution statements. Next, respondents received a risk questionnaire with either fact or feeling instructions. In the fact condition, the instructions read as follows: "When answering the following questions, please take the time to think about your answers. Tty to be very analytic. We have found that people's responses are better when they answer based on their factual knowledge.'' Participants in the feeling condition were instructed

NEGATIVE AFFECT, TRAIT ANXIETY, AND RISK as follows: "When answering the following questions, please react according to your gut instinct Try to use your emotions. We have found that people's responses are better when they just answer according to their feelings.'' The event questionnaire consisted of 5 personally relevant negative items (see Experiment 2) and 5 personally relevant positive items. The 5 positive items asked participants to estimate the likelihood of having a good relationship with a significant other, doing well on an examination, receiving an unexpected call from an old friend, doing something that one is proud of, and having a good time during winter break.3 After the event questionnaire, respondents completed some questionnaires, including the Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire and the STAI (Spielberger et al., 1970). The Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire assessed respondents' comprehension of the attribution manipulations (see Appendixes A and B). Respondents reread the attributional statements they had previously responded to and answered six pretested questions on 9-point scales. Three questions concerned the degree to which the attributional statements adequately explained their feelings (sufficiency score: items 1,3,5), and three questions concerned whether the statements implied that their feelings were personally relevant or attributable to the experimental situation (interpretation score: items 2, 4, 6).

Results Participants were classified as either low or high in trait anxiety using a mean split.

Risk Estimates Tb have all the estimates indicate the likelihood of negative outcomes, or risk, we reverse scored the positive event estimates. A 2 (instruction; fact vs. feeling) x 3 (attribution: none vs. life vs. task) x 2 (trait anxiety: low vs. high trait) x 2 (risk type: positive vs. negative) ANOV\ was performed with risk type as a within-subjects repeated measure. As expected, high-traitanxious participants (M = 4.93, SD = 1.05) estimated more risk than did low-trait-anxious participants (M - 3.85, SD = 1.03), F(l, 103) = 30.12,p < .01. Positive events (M = 3.50 reversed, SD = 1.40) also were rated as being more likely to occur than negative events {M = 5.15, SD = 1.81), F ( l , 103) = 72.82, p < .001. The data relevant to our hypothesis concerning trait anxiety and attribution are presented in Table 3. The attribution manipulations interacted with trait anxiety to influence how affect was used as information when estimating negative, F(2, 103) = 4.25, p < .02, but not positive events (F < 1), as indicated by an Attribution X Trait Anxiety X Risk Type interaction, F(2, 103) = 3.78, p < .03. As predicted, attribution manipulations did not influence the estimates of negative events for high-trait-anxious participants (none, M = 5.51; life, M = 6.18; and task, M = 6.06). They did reduce them for low-trait-anxious participants, but only the life attribution did so significantly (none, M — 5.28; life, M = 3.77, p < .01; and task, M = 4.79). This is consistent with the hypothesis that the effectiveness of attributions emphasizing personal sources of affect may be more subject to trait differences than those concerning impersonal sources. The effectiveness of the attribution manipulations also depended on the instructions. As Table 4 indicates, the instruction manipulation influenced how the attribution manipulations affected estimates of negative events, F(2, 103) = 4.82, p < .01, but not positive events (F < 1). This Instructions X Attribution X Risk Type interaction was significant, F(2, 103) — 4.22, p

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< .02. When participants were instructed to use feelings as a basis for judgment, the attribution manipulation did not influence negative event estimates (none, M = 4,61; life, M = 5.34; and task, M — 5.29). However, when instructions stressed using a factual basis for judgment, the life attribution manipulation was effective in reducing the effects of negative mood (none, M = 6.18; life, M = 4.61, p < .01; and task,M = 5.56). These effects occurred regardless of the level of trait anxiety. Thus, when everyone shared the same assumptions about the relevance of their affective cues, they used them in a similar manner It is noteworthy that the instructions to use a factual basis for judgment produced higher risk estimates than the instructions to rely on feelings (no attribution and fact instructions, M = 6.18; no attribution and feeling instructions, M ~ 4.61, p < .01). This effect, however, did not appear to be related to a greater use of affect in the fact condition than in the feeling condition. Correlational analyses showed that risk estimates were correlated with state anxiety in the feeling instruction group (/• = .58, p < .01), but not in the fact instruction group (r = .23, ns). Thus, the instructions changed participants' judgment strategies in the predicted directions.

The Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire Tb understand further how participants interpreted the attribution statements, we conducted a series of 2 (low vs. high trait anxiety) X 2 (fact vs. feeling risk instruction) X 2 (life vs. task attribution manipulation) ANOVAs on the sufficiency and interpretation scores. Only data from participants who initially received an attribution manipulation were included in these analyses. Sufficiency scores. The Sufficiency scale measured how well respondents thought the attribution statements captured the causes of their feeling state. The results were consistent with the idea that participants in the feeling condition assumed that their affect was more relevant than did those in the fact condition. Respondents in the feeling condition had a tendency to think that the attribution provided a less adequate explanation for their feelings than those in the fact condition (feelings, M = 5.37, SD = 2.16; facts, M = 6.27, SD = 2.17), F ( l , 60) = 2.92, p = .09. Additionally, high-trait-anxious respondents found the life attribution to be a better explanation of their feelings than the task attribution (task, M = 4.85, SD = 2.44; life, M = 6.81, SD = 1.97, p < .03), whereas low-trait-anxious respondents found both attributions to be equally adequate (task, M = 6.01, SD = 1.97; life, M = 5.62, SD = 2.31, ns), as indicated by an Attribution X Trait Anxiety interaction, F(l, 6 0 ) - 4.89, p< .05. Interpretation scores. Other questions assessed whether respondents interpreted the attributional statements as implying that their feelings were relevant to the experimental situation or to their general life circumstances. As expected, high-traitanxious respondents (M = 5.90, SD = 1.55) believed that their feelings were attributable to their general circumstances more than did low-trait-anxious respondents {M = 5.16, SD = 1.56), F ( l , 60) = 3.50, p < .07. However, an Attribution x Trait

3 The overall alpha was .57, the alpha for negative events was .68, and the alpha for positive events was .50.

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GASPER AND CLORE Table 3

Mean Likelihood Estimates for Negative and Positive (Reversed-Scored) Events for Lowand High-Trait-Anxious Participants by Attribution Condition in Experiment 3 Low trait anxiety Type of event Negative M SD Positive M SD Overall M SD

High trait anxiety

None (« = 20)

Life (n = 22)

Task (ri = 23)

None in = 21)

Life (n = 14)

Task (n = 15)

5.28 1.93

3.77 1.49

4.79 1.64

5.51 1.56

6.18 1.67

6.06 1.47

2.99 1.02

3.10 1.28

3.16 1.45

4.11 1.41

3.65 2.02

4.11 0.75

4.13 0.96

3.43 0.90

3.98 1.12

4.81 0.90

4.92 1.60

5.09 0.54

attribution) X 2 (low vs. high trait anxiety) ANOVA showed that the statements were rated as being more true in the life attribution (M = 1.34, SD = 0.76) than in the task attribution condition (M = 1.76, SD = 0.58), F ( l , 70) = 6.70, p = .01. However, both were rated as more true than false, and there was no evidence that low- and high-trait-anxious individuals differed in their endorsement of the statements (Fs < 1). Thus, trait differences did not affect participants' agreement with the plausibility of the attributional statements but they did affect how they understood their implications.

Anxiety interaction indicated a tendency for this effect to depend on the type of attribution, F ( l , 60) = 3.24, p < .08. As predicted, differences in trait anxiety affected how respondents interpreted the implications of the personally relevant life attribution, but not the less personally relevant task attribution. High-trait-anxious individuals interpreted the life attribution as implying that their feelings were generally important to a greater extent than did low-trait-anxious individuals (high trait, M — 6.20, SD = 1.75; low trait, M = 4.74, SD = 1.80, p = .01). There was no such differentiation in understanding of the task attribution (high trait, M = 5.62, SD = 1.33; low trait, M = 5.59, SD = 1.17, ns). Thus, high-trait-anxious individuals did interpret the attributions as implying that their feelings were more relevant than did low-trait-anxious individuals, and this effect was more pronounced when a personal, rather than nonpersonal, source of feelings was made salient.

State Anxiety To determine whether the attribution or risk instruction manipulations changed state anxiety, we performed a 2 (risk instructions) X 2 (trait anxiety) X 3 (attribution manipulations) AN0\A on the state anxiety measure. There were no significant effects that could suggest that our results were simply attributable to differences in state anxiety caused by reading the attribution statements or the risk instructions.

Endorsement of the Attribution Statements We designed the attribution statements so that most individuals would rate them as being true. Given that low- and hightrait-anxious individuals differed in their understanding of the two attribution statements, they also may have differed in their agreement with the statements. To assess this, we calculated respondents' mean agreement with the attribution statements (true = 1, possibly true = 2, and false = 3). A 2 (life vs. task

Story Analyses One advantage of using the recall of emotional events as a mood manipulation is that the stories can be analyzed to determine whether trait anxiety differentially affects people's perfor-

Table 4 Mean Likelihood Estimates for Negative and Positive (Reversed-Scored) Events by Instructions and Attribution Conditions in Experiment 3 Feeling instructions Type of event Negative M SD Positive M SD Overall M SD

Fact instructions

None (n = 21)

Life in = 18)

Task in = 19)

None in = 20)

Life in = 18)

Task (n = 19)

4.61 1.60

5.34 2.32

5.29 1.75

6.18 1.53

4.61 1.49

5.56 1.63

3.88 1.21

3.46 2.00

3.63 1.59

3.21 1.41

3.28 1.15

3.63 0.96

4.24 0.90

4.41 1.74

4.46 1.24

4.69 1.02

3.95 1.00

4.59 0.90


mance on this task. Three individuals rated the stories for severity, emotional quality, and length on a scale ranging from 1 (low) to 9 (high). Additionally, the number of emotion words used in each story also was calculated. The percentage of agreement for all pairs of ratings (agreed if within 2 scale points) and alphas indicated that these scores were reliable: severity, agreement = 99%, a = .82; emotional quality, agreement = 97%, a = .87; length, agreement = 99%, a = .94; and number of emotion words, a = .92. To determine whether low- and high-trait-anxious participants wrote different stories, we conducted a series of t tests on the severity, emotional quality, length, and word ratings. In addition, we used regression analyses to predict each of the ratings from participants' trait anxiety scores. It was clear that low- and hightrait-anxious individuals did not differ in the stories that they wrote because none of the analyses showed any statistically significant differences associated with trait anxiety.

Discussion The results confirm the pattern discovered in Experiments 1 and 2: that individuals high in trait anxiety are reluctant to reduce the influence of their anxious feelings when making judgments of risk. This appears to be due to trait-anxious individuals differing in their assumptions about the relevance of, but not the actual levels of, state anxiety. When we manipulated their assumptions about the relevance of their feelings, trait differences in response to the attribution manipulations disappeared. Attributions were ineffective when all individuals assumed that feelings were relevant but were effective when they all assumed that facts were primarily relevant. This effect occurred independently of participants' state anxiety. The Attribution R)llow-up Questionnaire data further illustrated that the instruction manipulation changed participants1 assumptions about the importance of their feelings. Respondents rated the attributional statements as providing less adequate reasons for their affect in the feeling instruction condition than in the fact condition. Presumably, the tendency for low-trait-anxious individuals to be responsive to the attribution manipulation depends on an assumption that their anxious feelings provide limited information, whereas the tendency for high-trait-anxious individuals to be unresponsive to the attribution depends on an assumption that their anxious feelings are highly informative. Data from the Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire suggest that high-anxious individuals appear to share with participants in the feeling condition a belief in the general relevance of their negative feelings. This effect also was dependent on the nature of the attribution manipulation. High-trait-anxious individuals thought that the personal (life) attribution implied that their feelings were more important than did low-trait-anxious participants, whereas trait differences were not apparent for the nonpersonal (task) attribution. Consequently, the personal attribution manipulation was more likely than the impersonal attribution to decrease risk estimates for low-, but not high-, trait-anxious participants. This finding is consistent with the idea that trait anxiety differences may become more apparent as the stimuli become more closely associated with self-relevant threatening cues (Mathews & MacLeod, 1994). State anxiety and risk estimates were correlated in the feeling, but not in the fact, instruction condition. Despite the absence of a correlation with anxiety, however, risk estimates were higher

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in the fact than in the feeling condition. The most plausible explanation is that the factual instructions stimulated individuals to search for specific examples as a way of complying with them. This should have been relatively easy because the events in question are not uncommon. In keeping with the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973), the easy retrieval of specific examples should have elevated risk estimates. In a study of political tolerance (Kuklinski, Riggle, Ottati, Schwarz, & Wyer, 1991), the fact-feeling instructions also were found to produce this result. Analytic instructions influenced participants to think of personally relevant examples, which lessened rather than increased their tolerance of other social groups. The instruction and attribution manipulations influenced negative, but not positive, event estimates. Presumably, negative feelings appeared more relevant for estimating negative than positive events. As a result, efforts to change the informational value of negative feelings through attributions had little influence on positive judgments. An alternative possibility was that participants were more certain about the likelihood of positive than negative events, so that it was harder for any manipulation to change their ratings.

General Discussion Throughout these studies, we focused on how individual differences in trait affect would influence reliance on state affect as information. Tb do this, we manipulated judgments, attributions, and instructions. The results suggest that the trait consistency of the feelings is an important factor in their perceived relevance for judgment. What follows is a discussion of these manipulations and how their effects increase the understanding of the role of affective information in judgment.

Type of Judgment Participants made judgments of the likelihood for events that varied in personal relevance and valence. Low-trait-anxious individuals rated impersonal events as being more likely than personal events, whereas high-trait-anxious individuals did not. Also, the way in which trait anxiety interacted with the attribution manipulations depended on the type of risk being estimated. The effects of manipulated attributions on event estimates always appeared with personally relevant negative events, sometimes appeared with impersonally relevant negative events, and never appeared with personally relevant positive events. As the object of judgment became more relevant to trait anxiety (e.g., a personally relevant dangerous situation rather than an impersonal or positive situation), trait differences in reliance on anxiety as information were more likely to appear. It is always possible that unintended differences in the content of personal versus impersonal or positive versus negative events contributed to the obtained results. However, each set included multiple items, and the findings are consistent with previous results suggesting that domain specificity may exist in the effects of anxiety (Mathews & MacLeod, 1994).

Manipulations of Affective Relevance In these experiments, we manipulated the apparent relevance of affective cues using attribution and instruction manipulations. The attribution manipulations always reduced affective influences that were trait inconsistent, but not those that were trait

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consistent. Apparently, trait-anxious individuals have a strong tendency to notice and rely on anxiety-relevant information. As a result, they are less likely to reduce the informational value of their anxiety cues, especially when they may be self-relevant. Indeed, Experiment 3 showed that trait-anxious individuals were more likely to think that the attributions implied that their anxious feelings were relevant, especially when the attributions made a self-relevant source salient. The results indicate that individuals are prepared to assume that the trait-consistent feelings are especially relevant to their current focus of attention and that such assumptions may be responsible for the observed immunity to attributional discounting. To test this hypothesis further, we varied these assumptions by explicitly instructing participants to use either facts or feelings as a basis for judgment. If assumptions about relevance do govern the effectiveness of attribution manipulations, then changing them also should influence the observed effects of trait affect. Under feeling instructions, attribution manipulations should fail to reduce affective influences even for low-traitanxious individuals. Under factual instructions, attribution manipulations should be effective even for high-trait-anxious individuals. This pattern is precisely what we found. Because trait differences no longer appeared when we controlled them, we infer that such assumptions were responsible for the trait effects we observed.

The Cognitive Capacity Hypothesis A different hypothesis, not previously mentioned, could be framed in terms of cognitive capacity. Conceivably, high-anxious individuals could have been less responsive to the attribution statements because they have less cognitive capacity available to correct their judgments (Drake, 1988; MacLeod & Donnellan, 1993). Indeed, in previous research, participants given a secondary task were less likely to correct their judgments in response to available attributions (Martin, Seta, & Crelia, 1990). However, evidence against a capacity hypothesis comes from Experiment 3, in which the attribution manipulation reduced mood effects for all participants in the factual instructions condition. If either high- or low-trait-anxious individuals had lacked the resources to correct their judgments, then the attribution manipulation should not have been effective. Because the effectiveness of attributions was controlled by varying participants' assumptions about the relevance of their affect to the judgment, we prefer an account based on differences in such assumptions rather than one based on differences in cognitive capacity. Also, in Experiment 2, a capacity view cannot explain the fact that lowtrait-anxious participants did not discount positive affect, a finding that suggests trait consistency rather than reduced capacity as a factor. In addition, a capacity hypothesis does not address other aspects of the data, such as the way in which perceptions of the attributions paralleled the affective orientations of lowand high-anxious participants.

Dispositional Affect We have treated state affect as a source of information and it may be useful to view trait affect in the same way, as providing another source of information. In his book, Descartes' Error, Damasio (1994) discussed what he called "dispositional af-

fect." He, too, was concerned with the adaptive role played by affective feelings in judgments and decisions. He suggested that dispositional affect is often relied on instead of momentary, online affect when making judgments and constructing current experiences. His examples included phantom limb phenomena. He suggested that current perceptions of the limb are based partly on dispositional information, which changes over time as one updates one's dispositional "beliefs" about how one's limb feels by sampling current sensations. Dispositional affect may play a role in information processing by helping to guide people's perceptions. For example, in Neisser's (1976) model of the perceptual cycle, the cognitive construction of a moment results from the interplay of incoming sensory information and existing conceptual information. Thus, people's perception of the situation in which they find themselves is not solely a matter of incoming information, as is clear from the fact that people's perception of a situation does not cease or change each time they blink or divert their gaze. Damasio (1994) seemed to suggest a related kind of construction of affective moments that involves an interplay of momentary feelings and dispositional affect. Presumably, dispositional affect fills in the blanks to help define a moment to the extent that on-line affective information is not being attended to or, as in our experiments, when on-line affect is made to seem irrelevant. Consistent with our results, information from on-line or state affect may be relied on more when it is consistent with backup information provided by dispositional or trait affect. On the other hand, state affect should be relied on less when it is inconsistent with the information provided by trait affect.

Implications and Conclusions The results suggest that an important difference between individuals scoring high and low in trait anxiety may be their faith in their own anxious feelings. Greater chronic anxiety sometimes led to greater perceived risk, but it always led to greater resistance to affective discounting manipulations. Explicit instructions that such feelings were relevant had similar effects, suggesting that the assumptions that individuals carry with them about the informativeness of particular kinds of feelings may be an important factor in the phenomenon. There appears to be a persistent reliance on trait-consistent affect and a corresponding willingness to rely less on traitinconsistent affect. These results suggest that dispositional affect may operate in the emotional domain as enduring stereotypes (Snyder, 1993) and self-beliefs (Steele, 1988) do in the social domain. Such structures may have several effects, including leading people to go beyond the affective information given by their on-line feelings, to fill in missing affective information and to rely on incoming affective information that is consistent. We propose that feedback from dispositional affect (and perhaps the experiential aspect of temperament) provides for people a world of affective continuity and consistency. Whether this leads to the unrealistic optimism described by Taylor and Brown (1988), the depressive biases described by Beck (1967), or a worldview of heightened threat displayed by our high-anxious participants may depend on which dispositional affect is available to provide a background reality to define the trait consistency of people's momentary feelings.


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(Appendixes follow)

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GASPER AND CLORE

Appendix A Sample Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire (Life Attribution Form)

Right after writing your personal event description some of you had to answer the following 3 truefalse questions about the event. Please recall your personal event and then answer the 3 questions, again if necessary. 1. Because of the negative event in my life, and remembering it, I feel at least some unpleasantness. True Possibly true False 2. Some of my current feelings of unpleasantness may have come from thinking about the personal negative event that has happened to me. True Possibly true False 3. If the event had not happened to me, I might not feel as unpleasant right now. True Possibly true False Would you please answer the following questions about how you interpret those 3 questions. 1. How completely would the 3 questions capture the causes for your current feeling state? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The questions would NOT The questions would explain my current feelings completely explain my current feelings 2. Do you feel that the 3 questions imply that: 1 2 3 4 5 The current feelings I have are solely because the experimenter instructed me to write about a personal event

6

7

8 9 The current feelings I have are solely because the event is a personally important part of my life

3. How plausible a reason would the 3 questions provide for why you may be momentarily feeling unpleasant? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 not plausible plausible plausible and and not likely but not likely very likely reason reason reason 4. After reading the 3 questions, would you believe that your current feelings are: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 highly relevant to you as a highly irrelevant to you as person and reflect the a person and reflect the nature of your life experimental situation 5. Do you think recalling the event would cause your current feelings? 1 2 3 4 5 6 recalling the event would cause ALL of my current feelings

7 8 9 recalling the event would NOT cause ANY of my current feelings

6. What do you think would be the source for your current feelings in this study? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The current feelings I have The current feelings I have are solely due to me are solely due to the experiment

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Appendix B Factor Analysis of the Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire In a pretesting session, 117 participants answered the Attribution Follow-Up Questionnaire. The following results were obtained using principal-components analyses with a varimax rotation. Two eigenvalues were greater than 1, and the results confirmed our prior expectations. Rotated factor loadings Item

Sufficiency

1 3 5 2 4 6 Percentage of total variance explained

.66 .70 -.69 .38 -.09 .24 29.80

Interpretation -.06 .05 .18 -.62 .83 .85 30.62

Note. The interpretation score was calculated so that higher numbers indicate that the attribution was interpreted in a general manner. Thus, Items 4 and 6 were reversed scored and Item 2 was not. Boldface indicates substantial factor loadings.

Received October 28, 1996 Revision received June 18, 1997 Accepted July 3, 1997

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