Effects of Cognitive Feedback, Emotional Induction, and Social Pressure on Decisions Related to Cognitive Performance with Economic Reward: Cognitive Feedback, Emotional Induction, and Social Pressure on Decision Making

The main aim of this study was to investigatewhether the effect of induced affective states, obtainedthrough a false (positive vs. negative) feedback in a cognitivetask, influenced participants' choices in a consecutivecognitive task. We also investigated a possible effect of'social pressure' on individual preferences, by introducinginformation about the percentage of difficulty level choicesprovided by other participants. The 3 x 2 experimentaldesign involved the manipulation of two between-subjectsvariables: feedback (positive vs. negative) and socialpressure (none vs. prudent vs. hazardous), 180undergraduates (90 males), with mean age 23.99 (SD=2.89)participated in the experiment as unpaid volunteers. Asexpected, results showed that the feedback manipulation washighly effective. Results also showed that participants whoreceived a negative feedback chose less difficult tasks, whilethose receiving a positive feedback preferred more difficulttasks. Some emotions partially mediated such effect. Instead, social pressure did not affect participants' choices.