The Affection Of Emotion And Motivation On Unconscious Thought Decision-Making

Since the rise of cognitive psychology,a large number of studies had shown that information processing could occur in the unconsciousness. In recent years, a new research subject came into vogue, the unconscious thought theory on decision-making, impression and attitude formation, and problem-solving. Many experimental studies had found that unconscious thought and conscious thought had different characteristics, which make these two kinds of thought fit to different decision situations. For example, unconscious thought works better when facing complex problems. Since the generation of the Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT), some researchers oppugned to it for its contradiction to the characteristics of the unconscious mental system found in previous studies. But as the researchers said, UTT describes the characteristics of two processes, rather than two systems or modules. So the purpose of the Unconscious Thought Theory is to help us to use the two kinds of thought felicitously, in order to improve the quality of decision-making effectively.On the basis of duplicating the decision situation in which unconscious thought behaved well, the research further explored the affection of emotion and motivation on unconscious thought decision-making. Three experiments arrived at the following review:(1) When facing with complex problems, decisions made after unconscious thought were superior to decisions made immediately after information acquisition, and to those made after conscious thought. Video can well induce emotions, but can't occupy participants'cognitive resources well.(2) Positive emotion brought down the quality of unconscious thought in decision-making. Using videos as the abstract task could induce emotions successfully, but failed to occupy the cognitive resources adequately.(3) Cognitive tasks with background music distract us from thinking consciously well, and also successfully induce emotions. Decision motivation expanded the influence of emotion on unconscious thought decision-making, that is, participants involved in the low decision motivation condition was less influenced by emotions, and those involved in the high decision motivation condition was inclined to be influenced by emotions. On the condition of holding a high decision motive, negative emotions significantly improve the quality of unconscious thought decision-making, and positive emotions contrarily would significantly decrease the quality of unconscious thought decision-making. When involved in positive emotions, people with high decision motive decided well than those with low decision motive; and when involved in negative emotions, people with high decision motive decided worse than those with low decision motive.