Turning gold into lead: Dampening appraisals reduce happiness and pleasantness and increase sadness during anticipation and recall of pleasant activities in the laboratory

Abstract

Two studies examined whether use of dampening appraisals (e.g., thinking "this is too good to last") or amplifying appraisals (e.g., thinking "I deserve this") modulated affective experience when remembering (Study One) and anticipating (Study Two) positive events. Both studies used a mixed within-between participants design, with participants completing an uninstructed positive recall/anticipation task before being randomized to either control, dampening, or amplifying instructions during a second positive recall/anticipation task. During memory recall (Study One), instructed dampening increased dampening appraisals and led to a reduction in happiness and pleasantness and an increase in sadness, significantly differing from the control and amplifying conditions. While the amplifying condition significantly increased amplifying appraisals, it did not alter affective experience (relative to the control condition). During anticipation (Study Two), identical findings emerged for the dampening manipulation. The amplifying manipulation did not significantly increase amplifying appraisals, precluding conclusions being drawn about the impact of amplifying in this study. These results suggest that dampening appraisals contribute to altered affective experience when imagining and recalling positive activities and may account for why attempts to do so can have paradoxically negative effects in clinical populations. Moreover, the studies preliminarily validate a novel scale measuring state appraisal of positive experiences.

Keywords: Amplifying appraisals; Anhedonia; Anticipatory processing; Autobiographical memory; Dampening appraisals; Emotion regulation; Positive affect; Positive appraisal style.