Metacognitive and Nonmetacognitive Reliance on Affect as Information in Judgment

Abstract

We propose that the reliance on feelings as information in judgment may involve two separate mechanisms: one involves a metacognitive assessment of whether one's feelings should be trusted in the judgment; the other is more mindless reliance on feelings without much consideration for their perceived diagnosticity. Consistent with this proposition, results from four experiments indicate that, when cognitive resources are available, the influence of integral (target-induced) and incidental (mood-induced) affect on judgment depends on the momentary trust that people have in their feelings, suggesting that feelings are metacognitively assessed in terms of perceived diagnosticity. In contrast, when cognitive resources are limited, the influence of integral and incidental affect on judgment does not depend on the perceived diagnosticity of the feelings, suggesting usage of feelings without metacognitive assessment.

Keywords: Affect, Mood, Judgment, Affect-as-information, Metacognition

JEL Classification: M31