Priming Emotions: The Effects of Emotional Cues on Interpretation of Social Situations
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Campus where you would like to present
Des Moines
Start Date
17-5-2012
Abstract
On a daily basis we are exposed to interactions, and we make judgments about them. The influence that recent ideas or events have on an interpretation of something else is called priming. Through the process of priming, our interpretations of the world around us can be influenced by recently or frequently accessible stimuli. The purpose of this current research is to study how emotions can influence one’s impression of a social interaction. The priming effects of emotions on interpretations of social situations are being studied to make a connection between one’s emotional state and their perception/opinion of others. This may lead to an understanding of how emotions affect our relationships with others. In this research, to consciously expose the subjects to emotional words for priming, a sentence completion task with different variations of each sentence for each condition will be conducted. There will be the three conditions of neutral, positive (happy), and negative (angry). After the subjects have been primed by completing the sentence completion task, they will then view an ambiguous image to interpret. The hypothesis of this study is that participants exposed to the negative emotional primes will have an interpretation of the ambiguous image that has assimilated to the primed emotion. The results are expected to show that both conditions will have some assimilation to the primes, but the negative condition will assimilate at a higher rate.
Recommended Citation
Beitlich, Stephanie, "Priming Emotions: The Effects of Emotional Cues on Interpretation of Social Situations" (2012). Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 1.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2012/cwucenters/1
Poster Number
3
Additional Mentoring Department
Psychology
Priming Emotions: The Effects of Emotional Cues on Interpretation of Social Situations
Des Moines
On a daily basis we are exposed to interactions, and we make judgments about them. The influence that recent ideas or events have on an interpretation of something else is called priming. Through the process of priming, our interpretations of the world around us can be influenced by recently or frequently accessible stimuli. The purpose of this current research is to study how emotions can influence one’s impression of a social interaction. The priming effects of emotions on interpretations of social situations are being studied to make a connection between one’s emotional state and their perception/opinion of others. This may lead to an understanding of how emotions affect our relationships with others. In this research, to consciously expose the subjects to emotional words for priming, a sentence completion task with different variations of each sentence for each condition will be conducted. There will be the three conditions of neutral, positive (happy), and negative (angry). After the subjects have been primed by completing the sentence completion task, they will then view an ambiguous image to interpret. The hypothesis of this study is that participants exposed to the negative emotional primes will have an interpretation of the ambiguous image that has assimilated to the primed emotion. The results are expected to show that both conditions will have some assimilation to the primes, but the negative condition will assimilate at a higher rate.
Faculty Mentor(s)
Danielle Polage, Steve Schepman, Sara Bender