This chapter will deal largely with persuasion: how people's feelings influence their acceptance of the proposals communicated to them. You will see that this matter is more complicated, and perhaps more surprising, than many readers expect. Because the audience members' response to the message depends to a great extent on their thoughts about the information they receive, this survey will extend the examination of the impact of mood on information processing that was introduced in Chapter 3 and continued in Chapter 5.

The first section of this review will be concerned mainly with the role of positive affect. Contrary to the widespread belief that most persons “lead a life of quiet desperation” or are, at best, grudgingly resigned to the ill fortune fate has dealt them, research has consistently demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of people in most societies are actually fairly happy. This being the case, we should ask whether this general happiness can have less than optimal consequences. And so, in considering how feelings can affect persuasibility, we will be especially interested in the notion, introduced earlier, that positive affect often promotes a cursory, somewhat simplified style of thinking. In this connection, we will continue our examination, begun in the previous chapter, of why pleasant feelings frequently have this effect. Chapter 5 discussed the MAI explanation. Here we will take up two other accounts, one emphasizing motivation and the other focusing on limitations on cognitive capacity.

The chapter will conclude with a brief examination of the role of negative affect.