Implicit happiness and sadness are associated with ease and difficulty: evidence from sequential priming.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Implicit associations influence cognitive processes.
• The implicit-affect-primes-effort model proposes links between affect and performance perceptions.
• Previous research suggests emotions can prime related concepts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate implicit associations between happiness and performance ease.
• To examine implicit associations between sadness and performance difficulty.
• To test the implicit-affect-primes-effort model using a sequential priming paradigm.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments utilized a sequential priming paradigm.
• Participants categorized emotion words or facial expressions.
• Primes included ease/difficulty words or emotional facial expressions.

Main Results:

• Reaction times increased from congruent to neutral to incongruent trials.
• Evidence supports implicit associations of happiness with ease.
• Evidence supports implicit associations of sadness with difficulty.

Conclusions:

• Findings confirm implicit associative links between happiness-ease and sadness-difficulty.
• The results align with predictions from the implicit-affect-primes-effort model.
• Implicit affective states are linked to perceptions of performance effort.