Emotional Processing in Categorization: Understanding the Cognitive Structure of the Self

The present study examines the cognitive-affective processes underlying compartmentalized and integrative self-structures by assessing the tendency to use emotional qualities of stimuli as a basis for categorization in a concept triad task (Niedenthal, Halberstadt, Innes-Ker, 1999). As predicted, individuals with evaluatively compartmentalized self-structures judged concepts sharing the same emotional quality (i.e., sadness, happiness, or fear) as more similar than did individuals with evaluatively integrative selves, suggesting that compartmentalization is associated with heightened emotional responses to affective stimuli. Compartmentalized self-structures may reflect underlying differences in emotional responses (or attention to them), not only to information that is explicitly self-relevant, but to a broad range of affective stimuli.