A Review of Jundt’s Study on Judgmental Biases

By Scott Chastain

                The hypothesis being tested in this study predicted that for biases of a non-personal nature, negative affect would lead to greater use of systematic thinking and less bias, and positive affect would show the opposite.  It was also conjectured that for biases that were more personal, the negative affect would indicate more reliance on heuristics and increased bias, and the positive affective state would lead to the opposite.

                It is interesting to note that in this particular study there was only a weak attempt to induce an affective state (positive or negative).  72 undergraduate students were divided into two condition groups.  Those assigned the goal condition were given goals of generating ideas, leading to either success or failure on the task.  The students affective state would be altered based on the results of the task.  The control condition did not receive any goal to succeed or fail on the task, thus eliminating a change in affective state.  The students then filled out a series of questionnaires which rated the usage of biases including the self-serving bias, anchoring and adjustment, and escalation of commitment, all of which were discussed in the class lectures.

                The results of this study indicated that on the above mentioned biases, no dramatic change was noted with prior affective states except the self-serving bias.  Students with higher negative affect were more biased in over-estimating their own future successes.  This finding seems to indicate that people in high negative affective states will generate a more positive outlook for themselves in the future to help escape the negative affect.  Similarly, those with lower levels of positive affect also over-estimated their future successes.  This flies in the face of what was presented in the class, in that negative affect should lead to less usage of heuristics and more reliance on systematic thinking.  The explanation does fit with the reason why negative affective states tend to increase systematic thought, and that is to improve the situation.  The self-serving bias offers a more positive outlook for those in negative affective states, and thus serves the same purpose.

                I did find it intriguing that there was no significant difference in the decreased use of heuristics with people in negative affective states, and the decreased use of systematic processing with people in positive affective states, which was taught in the class, mentioned in the study itself, and even the text refers to the phenomenon, “…positive moods sometimes reduce attentional capacity, thereby encouraging mental shortcuts” (Kenrick, et al.).

Work Cited

Jundt, D.K. (2002).  Influences of positive and negative affect on decisions involving judgmental biases. 

     Social Behavior and Personality, 30(1), 45-52.