The proposed model integrates two streams of research on affect by specifying how evaluative and regulatory mechanisms interact to guide behavior. Two experiments demonstrate that when no mood-changes are expected, the affective evaluation mechanism guides behavior, leading to a monotonic increase in behavioral intentions as affect conditions shift from negative to positive. When participants expect the behavioral activity to change their current affective states, a combination of affect regulation and affective evaluation produces a U shape pattern when a mood-lifting cue is present (experiment 1) and an inverted U shape pattern when a mood-threatening cue is present (experiment 2).

One's own emotions may influence others' behavior in a given social interaction. If one believes this, s/he has an incentive to game emotions - to strategically conceal a current emotion or display a non-experienced emotion - in an attempt to influence her/his counterpart. In a series of three experiments, we show that people deliberately conceal (experiment 1) or misrepresent (experiments 2 and 3) their emotional state in a negotiation setting. When given the opportunity to either hide or express their current emotions before playing an ultimatum game, receivers who have reported low (vs. high) level of anger are more likely to conceal their emotion right before the proposers decide on the division of the pie (experiment 1). When the procedure allows participants to change their previously reported emotion, receivers choose to inflate their reported level of anger prior to proposers' decision (experiment 2). Finally, this emotion gaming hypothesis generalizes to positive emotions as well. In a standard trust game, trustees inflate the level of happiness before trusters decide on passing vs. keeping a fixed amount of money to the trustees (experiment 3).

Anecdotal evidence suggests that in a gambling environment consumers may end up betting more than they had initially planned. We assess this phenomenon using sequential and fair gambles in a two-stage process (planned and actual bets). The results show that in the planning phase, people behave conservatively, betting on average less after an anticipated loss and the same amount after an anticipated gain. However, after an actual loss in the first gamble is experienced, individuals bet in a subsequent gamble significantly more than what they had initially planned, whereas on average no differences from the plan are perceived after a gain. We show that the reason for such asymmetry is in part due to people's tendency to underestimate, at the planning phase of the gamble, the impact of negative emotions in betting decisions during the actual phase of the gamble.

Other people's incidental feelings can influence one's decision in a strategic manner. In a sequential game where a proposer moves first by dividing a given pot of cash (to keep 50% [vs. 75%] of the pot) and a receiver responds by choosing the size of the pot (from $0 to $1), the proposer is more likely to make an unfair offer (i.e., to keep 75% of the pot) to a receiver who watched a funny sitcom (vs. “angry” movie clip) in an unrelated study prior to the game playing. However, when the receiver knows that the proposer has the affective information, and the proposer is aware of this knowledge, the effect dissipates. In other words, a proposer expects a happy (vs. angry) receiver to be more accommodating or cooperative as long as the happy receiver does not realize that the proposer is trying to benefit from receiver's current incidental feelings.

How can the hedonistic assumption (i.e., people's willingness to pursue pleasure and avoid pain) be reconciled with people choosing to expose themselves to experiences known to elicit negative feelings? We assess how (1) the intensity of the negative feelings, (2) positive feelings in the aftermath, and (3) the coactivation of positive and negative feelings contribute to our understanding of such behavior. In a series of 4 studies, consumers with either approach or avoidance tendencies (toward horror movies) were asked to report their positive and/or negative feelings either after (experiment 1) or while (experiments 2, 3A, and 3B) they were exposed to a horror movie. We demonstrate how a model incorporating coactivation principles and enriched with a protective frame moderator (via detachment) can provide a more parsimonious and viable description of the affective reactions that result from counter-hedonic behavior.

Whereas negative feelings sometimes increase preference for mood-incongruent aesthetic experiences (e.g., cheerful music, comedy), they also sometimes increase preference for mood-congruent ones (e.g., sorrowful music, drama). In this paper, we address the causes of this apparent discrepancy. We hypothesize that (1) mood-congruent aesthetic experiences offer a sense of bonding and emotional sharing, akin to interacting with an empathetic friend and thus (2) they are preferred when individuals are deprived of a sense of bonding from dissolving interpersonal relationships. Consistent with our hypotheses, three experiments show that negative feelings from broken interpersonal bonds increase preferences for mood-congruent aesthetic experiences, whereas negative feelings from non-interpersonal problems increase mood-incongruent preferences. Our results also help account for the inconsistencies in the literature.