Background and objectives

Understanding how individuals integrate new information to form beliefs under changing emotional conditions is crucial to describing decision-making processes. Previous research suggests that although most people demonstrate bias toward optimistic appraisals of new information when updating beliefs, individuals with dysphoric psychiatric conditions (e.g., major depression) do not demonstrate this same bias. Despite these findings, limited research has investigated the relationship between affective states and belief updating processes.

Methods

We induced neutral and sad moods in participants and had them complete a belief-updating paradigm by estimating the likelihood of negative future events happening to them, viewing the actual likelihood, and then re-estimating their perceived likelihood.

Results

We observed that individuals updated their beliefs more after receiving desirable information relative to undesirable information under neutral conditions. Further, we found that individuals did not demonstrate unrealistic optimism under negative affective conditions.

Limitations

This study incorporated a population of university students under laboratory conditions and would benefit from replication and extension in clinical populations and naturalistic settings.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that momentary fluctuations in mood affect how individuals integrate information to form beliefs.

中文翻译：

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消极情绪和乐观偏见：悲伤和信念更新的实验研究

背景和目标

了解个人如何在不断变化的情绪条件下整合新信息以形成信念对于描述决策过程至关重要。先前的研究表明，尽管大多数人在更新信念时表现出对新信息的乐观评估的偏见，但患有烦躁精神疾病（例如重度抑郁症）的人却没有表现出同样的偏见。尽管有这些发现，但有限的研究调查了情感状态和信念更新过程之间的关系。

方法

我们诱导参与者产生中性和悲伤的情绪，并通过估计未来负面事件发生在他们身上的可能性、查看实际可能性，然后重新估计他们感知到的可能性，让他们完成信念更新范式。

结果

我们观察到，在中性条件下，个人在收到相对于不良信息的理想信息后会更多地更新他们的信念。此外，我们发现个体在消极情感条件下并没有表现出不切实际的乐观情绪。

局限性

这项研究纳入了实验室条件下的大学生群体，并将受益于临床人群和自然环境中的复制和扩展。

结论

这些发现表明，情绪的短暂波动会影响个人整合信息形成信念的方式。