Influences of positive and negative affect on decisions involving judgmental biases

This study examines the influences of positive and negative affect on decisions involving seven judgmental biases. For nonpersonally relevant biases, it was hypothesized that negative affect would lead to more in-depth thinking and less biased decisions while positive affect would lead to shallower thinking and more biased responses. For the personally relevant self-serving bias, it was hypothesized that negative affect would lead to more shallow processing and more biased responses, while positive affect would lead to more in-depth processing and less biased responses. Significantly biased responses were found for all of the judgmental biases. Results supported the hypotheses for the self-serving biases, but not for the nonpersonally relevant biases, suggesting that affect may have differential influences on personally relevant and nonpersonally relevant judgments.