Examining the role of negative pre- and post-goal emotions on susceptibility to misinformation for central and peripheral details

Abstract

The current study examined how the narrowing of cognitive scope due to negative pregoal emotions and the broadening of cognitive scope due to negative post-goal emotions influences susceptibility to misinformation. The pre-goal emotion studied was threat, and the post-goal emotion studied was sadness. Participants included 91 young adults (M = 19.01 years, SD = 2.09 years) who viewed threatening, sad, and neutral images, then were exposed to misinformation on a memory test. Participants veridical memory and acceptance of misinformation was assessed through a second memory test. A significant misinformation effect was found across conditions. However, there were no differences between threat and sadness images for peripheral misinformation acceptance. As well, across the threat, sadness, and neutral images there were no differences in veridical memory, implying that no narrowing or broadening of cognitive scope occurred. From this, it was concluded that pre- and post-goal negative emotions may not have the expected narrowing and broadening effect on cognitive scope.