Feeling Good, But Not Thinking Straight: The Impact of Positive Mood on Persuasion

Razran argued that the affect associated with the positive (food) or negative (odors) stimuli transferred to the contiguously presented slogans, increasing agreement with slogans seen while eating and decreasing agreement with slogans seen while smelling noxious odors. This associationist interpretation received further support from later studies demonstrating that repeated pairing of a word with a positive or negative stimulus influenced the word's evaluative rating Recent research on attitude change has investigated two different types of information processing strategies that people might adopt when they encounter persuasive communications. Each of these processing strategies culminates in a series of judgments about the validity of the persuasive message or its contents, judgments which in turn determine persuasion. The exposure time manipulation thus had a substantial impact on the attitude change shown by subjects in a good mood.