Mood And Judgment: The Affect Infusion Model

The affect infusion model is a theoretical model in the field of human psychology developed by social psychologist Joseph Paul Forgas in the early 1990s. The affect infusion model attempts to explain how mood affects ability of a person to process information.

A key claim of the affect infusion model is that mood effects tend to be exacerbated in complex situations that require substantial cognitive processing. In other words, as situations become more complicated and unforeseen, mood becomes more influential in driving evaluations and responses.

Mood affects our judgments

Mood affects our judgments, but not consistently. For mood to have an effect on our judgment, it has to override the forces that would normally lead to what we might call ‘standard’ judgment.

Humor has no effect when we are making judgments that are based on the direct recall of a simple preformed conclusion or when we are trying to satisfy strong goals. However, the state of mind does have an effect when we try to make decisions. Thus, humor seeps into the level below the level of consciousness, skewing our judgments without us noticing.

The Infusion of Affection Model

Forgas defined the term infusion of affection as “the process by which the affectively charged information exerts an influence and is incorporated into the trial process, entering the judge’s deliberations and eventually coloring the outcome of the trial.”  In other words, the infusion of affect is a process that determines the degree to which mood can affect our judgment.

According to the affect infusion model, affect (mood and emotion) exerts a notable influence not only on information processing, but also on the resulting response behaviors. For example, if a person receives an excessively large bill, they will respond differently if they had a relaxed and stress-free day than if they had a busy and inconvenient day. In the latter circumstance, the person will experience high levels of infusion of affection, since his agitated state will undoubtedly be worsened by seeing the electricity bill.

One assumption of the affect infusion model is that this effect will generally occur with greater intensity as the complexity of a situation increases. Highly complex situations can exhibit a number of qualities, such as the amount of effort required to process information.

Processing strategies

According to Forgas, the different levels of affect infusion can be viewed as a continuum, with four alternative processing strategies as markers along that continuum. These strategies represent the different degrees of severity in which humor exerts its influence.

The processing strategies proposed by Forgas are:

• Direct Access Processing : involves replaying a stored reaction, that is, repeating a response that has been given before to a similar situation. According to the affect infusion model, the influence of mood on cognition will be less severe during this type of processing.
• Motivated Processing – Involves specific and specific search strategies with a direct informational goal in mind. This strategy also involves little influence from mood, as the individual in question will have a pretty good idea of ​​what information he or she needs.

• Heuristic Processing : It assumes that affective processing, or emotional processing, occurs outside of our consciousness, and people simply make sense of their emotional reactions as they occur, so the affective experience provides people with information about themselves.
• Substantive or systematic processing: it involves the most elaborate cognitive processing and appears higher on the continuum, since it is the most affected by mood. This is because mood can affect every stage of the cognitive process: attention, coding, retrieval, and association.

When identifying these strategies, two important differentiating factors must be considered : the information search strategies used to perform a task (open or restricted) and the scope of the information considered in the construction of a response.