Does Negative Affect Always Narrow and Positive Affect Always Broaden the Mind? Considering the Influence of Motivational Intensity on Cognitive Scope

Research over the last five decades has suggested that negative affective states narrow cognitive scope whereas positive affective states broaden cognitive scope. An examination of this past research, however, reveals that only negative affects of high motivational intensity (e.g., fear, stress) and positive affects of low motivational intensity (e.g., gratitude, amusement) may have been examined. Consequently, over the last five years, research has examined positive and negative affects that are low (e.g., sadness) vs. high (e.g., desire) in motivational intensity. This research has found that affects of low motivational intensity broaden cognitive scope whereas affects of high motivational intensity narrow cognitive scope, regardless of the positivity or negativity of the affective state. Several studies have indicated that positive affective states cause a broadening of cognitive processes (e.g., Fredrickson, 2001), whereas negative affective states cause a narrowing of cognitive processes (e.g., Easterbrook, 1959; Finucane, 2011). That is, positive affect causes one’s mind to be more open or more likely to see the forest, whereas negative affect causes one’s mind to be more narrowly focused or more likely to see the trees. Thi