tween affect, particularly positive affect, and cognitive processing. Further-
more, Ashby et al. (1999) suggested that the relation of negative affect to cog-
nitive processing does not involve the same underlying biological basis. This
adds further support for the differentiation in the way in which positive ver-
sus negative affect relates to cognitive processing, as suggested by the recent
revisions to the theories reviewed here.
IMPLICATIONS FOR ACADEMIC CONTEXTS
Thus far we have discussed theoretical models linking affect and cognitive
processing. These models, however, were primarily developed using typical
cognitive and social psychology experimental tasks and may not be readily
applicable to academic contexts. For instance, in his development of the
mood-and-general-knowledge theory, Bless (2000) drew from studies con-
ducted in a variety of paradigms including mood and stereotyping (e.g.,
Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Susser, 1994), mood and dual processing (e.g.,
Bless et al., 1996), and mood and heuristic processing (e.g., Mackie & Worth,
1989). These tasks do not closely resemble academic tasks.
For instance, in one experimental study, Bodenhausen et al. (1994) in-
duced college students into positive and neutral moods and examined how
mood influenced their social judgments. More specifically, participants were
asked to read a paragraph-long case (involving either a student assault in a
dorm room or cheating incident) and make a judgment about the guilt or in-
nocence of the perpetrator (who was portrayed as either representing a ster-
eotyped group or a neutral group). Another experimental study conducted by
Bless et al. (1996) examined the effect of mood on heuristic dual processing.
In this study, participants completed two tasks simultaneously. For one task,
they were given a worksheet with several rows of the letters “d” and “p” with
different numbers of dashes. They were instructed to circle the d every time it
appeared with two dashes. They completed this task while also listening to a
tape-recorded story about a common occurrence (e.g., a call from a public
telephone booth) that had typical and atypical features. After a break, they
were tested on their recall of the features of the story. Similarly, Mackie and
Worth (1989) examined the effect of mood on heuristic processing using a
persuasion paradigm. Participants were induced into a positive or neutral
mood and were exposed to a persuasive speech (24 lines long) with either a
strong or weak argument about governmental controls to limit acid rain.
They were either given 65 seconds to read the speech or given unlimited time
to read the speech and then asked to complete a questionnaire assessing their
attitudes about acid rain and recall as much information as they could about
the speech. Although students do read texts and are asked to recall them,
66 LINNENBRINK AND PINTRICH