Misattribution of Affective Coherence Versus Incoherence in Subsequent Judgments

People experience pleasantness when they act toward a stimulus in an affectively coherent (e.g., approaching positive stimuli and avoiding negative stimuli) versus incoherent manner. Nevertheless, it is unclear how misattributing this pleasantness resulting from affective coherence can impact human judgment. To this end, we examined the impact of misattributing the pleasantness of affective coherence to a subsequent target (Study 1), depending on the saliency of the target (Study 2). We found that experiencing affective coherence led to more positive impressions of subsequently encountered targets than did experiencing affective incoherence. These results expand our understanding of the role affect can play in human judgment. We discuss some limitations and implications of these findings.