Affective influences on individual and group judgments

Do emotional states influence the social judgments made by groups and individuals? Based on affect‐cognition theories and research on group judgmental shifts, we predicted that group discussion will enhance positive mood effects on judgments, but inhibit affectively‐based distortions in dysphoric moods. Positive, neutral and negative moods were induced using audiovisual presentations. Individual and group consensus judgments of nine person categories on three judgmental dimensions (evaluation, competence and self‐confidence) were obtained in two experimental sessions separated by a two‐week interval. Results showed that individuals made more positive judgments when happy, and more negative judgments when sad than did controls. Group discussion resulted in a further polarization of positive judgments, and the attenuation of negative judgments. The findings are interpreted as evidence for the important role affect plays in mediating both individual cognitive processes and interactive social behaviours. The implications of the results for contemporary affect‐cognition theories and models of group behaviour are considered.