When negative affect drives attentional control: The role of motivational orientation.

According to recent theorizing, cognitive control and affective processing are closely linked. Specifically, it has been suggested that negative affect acts as a driving force for attentional adjustment. Empirical support comes from a study by van Steenbergen et al. (Psychol Sci 20:1473–1477, 2009) demonstrating that negative stimuli increase the congruence sequence effect (CSE), a behavioural marker that indexes attentional adjustment. In this research, we provide a theoretical analysis that identifies motivational orientation (approach vs. avoidance) as a potential moderator. To test this, we replicated the study by van Steenbergen et al. (2009) and additionally manipulated the motivational orientation of participants. Participants either gained extra money after task completion (gain-focused group) or lost money after task completion (loss-focused group). Results showed that negative stimuli boost attentional adjustment, but only in the loss-focused group. This finding highlights the role of motivation for recent theorizing on emotion-driven control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]