Emotion and Memory: Ongoing And Recent Work
Suspense and Suggestibility
With Matt Cruz (Boston University School of Medicine), Mike Greenstein (St. Peter's University), and Ken Mutlu (Intel Semi-Finalist).Emotion has been shown to impact one's vulnerability to misinformation effects. We investigated two opposing predictions about how suspense would impact suggestibility. Suspense can be characterized as an unpleasant state associated with with fear, hope, and uncertainty. The desire to extricate oneself from this state may lead to an increased need for knowledge, which in turn may lower the criterion for accepting new information as true. Suspenseful people may thus become more vulnerable to misinformation effects. On the other hand, it is possible that the heightened apprehension associated with the emotional state of suspense will increase vigilance, leading to more conservative criteria for accepting new information. Our work has supported the latter prediction, demonstrating a lowered risk of suggestibility when people feel suspense. Further, this effect is sensitive to whether the topic of misinformation is directly relevant to the experience of suspense.