How do emotions interact with cognition? The last 40 years has witnessed the rise of cognitive-appraisal theories, which propose that emotions can be differentiated along an axis of cognitive dimensions such as certainty, pleasantness, attentional activity, control, anticipated effort, and responsibility (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985). Early tests of such theories focused especially on the impact of the valence – pleasantness/unpleasantness – of emotions on judgment and decision-making, finding, for instance, that negative mood induction can heighten pessimistic estimates of risk (Johnson & Tversky, 1983).

 

The Appraisal-Tendency Framework proposed by Lerner and Keltner (2000) refined cognitive-appraisal theory by proposing that specific emotions trigger a predisposition to appraise future (or hypothetical) events in line with the central appraisal dimensions that triggered the emotion, even when the emotion and the judgment are unrelated. For example, an individual who is triggered to become fearful of a heightened risk, such as nuclear war, may then exhibit heightened pessimism about risks unrelated to war. The Appraisal-Tendency Framework also predicts relationships between traits, such as between fear, anger and risk-taking/risk-seeking tendencies. In an influential paper, Lerner and Keltner (2001) reported direct empirical support for the Appraisal-Tendency Framework, which aside from its influence in cognitive/affective psychology has had considerable impact in behavioural economics, moral psychology, and studies of consumer behaviour.

 

In the current study, Lu and Feldman (2022) propose to replicate three key studies from Lerner and Keltner (2001) in a large online sample. Through a combination of replication and extension, the authors will probe the relationship between various trait emotions (including fear, anger, happiness, and hope) and trait characteristics of risk seeking and optimistic risk assessment. The authors also propose examining how the ambiguity of triggering events moderates the relationship between specific emotions and risk judgments. 

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).
 
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/8yu2x

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA. 
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

1. Smith, C. A., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1985). Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 813-838. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.48.4.813

 

2. Johnson, E. J., & Tversky, A. (1983). Affect, generalization, and the perception of risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(1), 20–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.1.20

 

3. Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2000). Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice. Cognition & Emotion, 14, 473-493. https://doi.org/10.1080/026999300402763 

 

4. Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 146–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.1.146

  
5. Lu, S. & Feldman, G. (2022). Associations of fear, anger, happiness, and hope with risk judgments: Revisiting appraisal-tendency framework with a replication and extensions of Lerner and Keltner (2001), in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/8yu2x

When we familiarise with new faces over repeated exposures, it is in situations that have meaning for us. Here, Noad and Andrews (2023) ask whether meaningful context during exposure matters for the consolidation of faces into long-term memory. Participants will be shown video clips from TV shows that are ordered either in their original chronological sequence, preserving meaningful context, or in a scrambled sequence. It is expected that the original sequence will provide a better understanding of the narrative. The critical question is whether this will also be associated with differences in memory for the faces. Memory will be tested with images of the actor from the original clips (‘in show’) or images of the same actor from another show (‘out-of-show’), both immediately after exposure and following a four-week delay. It is predicted that memory for faces will be better retained across the delay when the original exposure was in a meaningful context, and that this benefit will be enhanced for ‘in-show’ images, where the person’s appearance matches with the original context. The pre-registered predictions and the targeted effect sizes for this study are informed by pilot data reported within the manuscript.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated through an initial round of editorial review, followed by a further round of external review, after which the recommender judged that it met the Stage 1 criteria for in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/8wp6f
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA. 
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:

 

 
References
 
1. Noad, K. & Andrews, T. J. (2023). The importance of consolidating perceptual experience and contextual knowledge in face recognition, in principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/8wp6f