The flexible impact of member affect in groups performing complex decision-making tasks

Positive and negative affect are often thought to influence the quality of group decision-making by prompting different cognitive processing styles: a less effortful heuristic style in the case of positive affect, and a more detail-oriented systematic style in the case of negative affect, with the latter yielding better group decisions than the former. By contrast, we argue that rather than prompting a specific cognitive processing style, positive affect encourages the maintenance of whatever style is currently in use, while negative affect encourages a change in style. Consequently, both positive and negative affect can result in either better or worse group decisions, depending on which cognitive processing style was at play just prior to the affect’s arousal. To test this idea, we conducted three experiments, and found that when heuristic processing was initially primed, subsequently inducing a sad mood resulted in better decisions by both individuals and groups than did subsequently inducing a happy mood. The reverse occurred when systematic processing was initially primed. In groups, these effects were mediated by the relative focus, during group discussion, on critical decision-relevant information. Implications of these findings and future directions for research are discussed.