The Influence of Affect on Social-Information Processing

This study examined the impact of four affect induction conditions (self-induced positive affect, music-induced positive affect, music-induced negative affect, and neutral affect) on the social-information-processing skills of 96 seventh-grade students with and without learning disabilities using the Dodge (1983) model of social skills. Following a 1-minute affect induction, students were presented with a social problem and asked a series of questions that tested their social skills. Although the results did not find significant differences between school-identified students with and without learning disabilities, there were significant main effects for language skills and affect induction. Students above the median on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills language test generated more solutions and fewer negative responses than students below the median. Students in the self-induced positive affect condition generated more solutions, whereas students in the music-induced positive affect condition generated more embellishments and perceived less interpretation (negative/positive), than students in the neutral and negative affect conditions. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.