The central question of my thesis is how different positive emotions affect inhibition. Katzir, Eyal, Meiran, and Kessler (2010) addressed this question using an antisaccade task and found that happiness decreased inhibition compared to pride, which they attribute to the links between pride and long-term goals and happiness and short-term goals. I attempted to generalize their results to a color-naming Stroop task and predicted that their results would not generalize because their study had little supporting research and their method had several limitations. I tested 45 students of the Claremont Colleges and found partial support for Katzir et al. Participants in the pride condition showed better inhibitory function than participants in the neutral condition, but I was unable to find differences in inhibitory function between participants in the pride and happiness or happiness and neutral conditions. The results suggest that pride improved inhibitory function compared to neutral emotion, but happiness had no effect. I conclude that further research is needed to confirm the supposed distinction between pride and happiness, the strength of the links between happiness, pride, and different goals, and the motivational role of emotion in inhibition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CLAREMONT/oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:scripps_theses-1052 |
| Date | 12 May 2012 |
| Creators | Hilles, Emery K. |
| Publisher | Scholarship @ Claremont |
| Source Sets | Claremont Colleges |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Scripps Senior Theses |
| Rights | © 2012 Emery K. Hilles |
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