Nonconscious emotional activation colors first impressions: a regulatory role for conscious awareness.
Psychol Sci
; 25(2): 349-57, 2014 Feb.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24317420
Emotions can color people's attitudes toward unrelated objects in the environment. Existing evidence suggests that such emotional coloring is particularly strong when emotion-triggering information escapes conscious awareness. But is emotional reactivity stronger after nonconscious emotional provocation than after conscious emotional provocation, or does conscious processing specifically change the association between emotional reactivity and evaluations of unrelated objects? In this study, we independently indexed emotional reactivity and coloring as a function of emotional-stimulus awareness to disentangle these accounts. Specifically, we recorded skin-conductance responses to spiders and fearful faces, along with subsequent preferences for novel neutral faces during visually aware and unaware states. Fearful faces increased skin-conductance responses comparably in both stimulus-aware and stimulus-unaware conditions. Yet only when visual awareness was precluded did skin-conductance responses to fearful faces predict decreased likability of neutral faces. These findings suggest a regulatory role for conscious awareness in breaking otherwise automatic associations between physiological reactivity and evaluative emotional responses.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Concienciación
/
Percepción Visual
/
Estado de Conciencia
/
Emociones
/
Respuesta Galvánica de la Piel
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Psychol Sci
Asunto de la revista:
PSICOLOGIA
Año:
2014
Tipo del documento:
Article
Pais de publicación:
Estados Unidos