An evolutionist approach to information bipolarity: Representations and affects in human cognition

✍ Scribed by Eric Raufaste; Stéphane Vautier

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 258 KB
• Volume: 23
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0884-8173
• DOI: 10.1002/int.20298

✦ Synopsis

This paper investigates the psychological plausibility of the bipolarity concept, i.e., that positive and negative kinds of information are treated differently. Sections 2 and 3 review relevant investigations of the representational and affective systems in the experimental psychology literature. Section 4 provides new data supporting the idea that even when considering how affective changes occur, a certain level of independence exists between the positive and negative sides of affect. Together the studies reported here strongly support the psychological plausibility of bipolarity: Positive and negative kinds of information are not processed in the same way whichever domain is considered, preferences (affect) or beliefs (mental categories).