Approach-Motivated Positive Affect Reduces Breadth of

ABSTRACT— Researchhasfoundthatpositiveaffectbroad-ens attention. However, these studies have manipulatedpositiveaffectthatislowinapproachmotivation.Positiveaffect that is high in approach motivation should reducethe breadth of attention, as organisms shut out irrelevantstimuli as they approach desired objects. Four studies ex-amined the attentional consequences of approach-moti-vated positive-affect states. Results were consistent withpredictions. Participants showed less global attentionalfocus after viewing high-approach-motivating positivestimuli than after viewing low-approach-motivating posi-tive stimuli (Study 1) or neutral stimuli (Study 2). Study 3found that greater trait approach motivation resulted inless global attentional focus after participants viewedapproach-motivating positive stimuli. Study 4 manipu-lated affect and approach motivation independently.Greater approach-motivated positive affect caused lowerglobal focus. High-approach-motivated positive affectreduces global attentional focus, whereas low-approach-motivated positive affect increases global attentionalfocus. Incorporating the intensity of approach motivationinto models of positive affect broadens understanding ofthe consequences of positive affect.Much research over the past 20 years has found that positiveaffect broadens cognition and attention (e.g., Rowe, Hirsh, A for reviews, see Fredrickson, 2001, and Isen,2000). Indeed, this result is considered ‘‘one of the most robustand widely conﬁrmed ﬁndings in the affect literature’’ (Isen,2002, p. 57). Previous reports on positivity and broadening have used theterm affect (Isen, 2002), mood (Gasper & Clore, 2002), oremotion (Fredrickson, 2001) to describe the positive state ma-nipulated. Emotions are often viewed as phenomena comprisingmultiple moderately correlated components, including feelingsof pleasure or displeasure, overt or covert motor behaviors, ac-tion readiness, physiological changes, and cognitive appraisals(Frijda, 1993; Lang, 1995). Moods are similar to emotions, ex-ceptthat moods are said to lackobjects(Frijda,1994). Althoughmoods may be different from emotions, past research has foundthat positive moods and positive emotions have identical effectson broadening of cognition and attention.Much work on emotions has emphasized that they have anumber of underlying dimensions. Two dimensions that havereceived considerable attention are affective valence, the feltpleasure or displeasure, and motivational direction, the actiontendency associated with a particular emotional state—ap-proach or withdrawal. Approach motivation refers to an urge oraction tendency to go toward an object, whereas withdrawalmotivation refers to an urge or action tendency to move awayfrom an object. Because the word emotion is often associatedwith discrete emotion words, such as joy, and because we focusonthedimensionsunderlying speciﬁcemotions,weusethetermpositive affect in this article.In past studies on positivity and broadening, positivity wascreated by giving participants gifts, having them view funnyﬁlms, or asking them to recall pleasant memories. These mani-pulations likely evoked low approach motivation; they involvedemotions that were experienced after a goal was obtained oremotions that were not relevant to a goal. Positive affects,however, vary in the degree to which they are associated withapproach motivation. Some positive-affect states are low inapproach motivation (e.g., joy after watching a funny ﬁlm),