From dampening to rigidity: How responses to positive emotion shape interpretations of ambiguous social situations

Interpretation biases and inflexibility in resolving ambiguous social situations are central to cognitive models of depression and anxiety, yet the mechanisms that shape these interpretation processes remain insufficiently understood. This preregistered experiment tested whether experimentally inducing dampening versus amplifying responses to positive emotion causally influences how people interpret and update ambiguous social information. Dutch adults (n = 268) completed a positive autobiographical memory induction and were randomly assigned to a dampening, amplifying, or control condition. Participants then completed an emotional Bias Against Disconfirmatory Evidence (BADE) task indexing negative interpretation inflexibility, negative interpretation bias, and positive interpretation bias. Dampening increased negative interpretation inflexibility relative to both amplifying and control conditions. Dampening also increased negative interpretation bias relative to the amplifying condition, but no reliable condition differences emerged for positive interpretation bias. These findings suggest that dampening may operate as a proximal cognitive-affective mechanism that reduces the uptake of positive belief-disconfirming evidence, thereby maintaining rigid negative social interpretations. Targeting dampening responses to positive emotion may strengthen belief updating and cognitive flexibility in interventions for depression and anxiety.