Applied & PreventivePsychology 10:225-242 (2002). CambridgeUniversityPress. Printed in the USA. Copyright © 2001 AAAPP0962-1849/01 $9.50 Affective influences on thinking and behavior: Implications for clinical, applied and preventive psychology JOSEPH R FORGAS, NORMAN Y.M. CHAN ANt) SIMON M. LAHAM University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Abstract What role do affective states play in everyday social behavior? This article presents an overview of recent research on the influence of affective states on the way people think and act in social situations, with a special emphasis on the applied and preventive implications of this work. We review psychodynamic, conditioning, and cognitive explanations of affective influences, and present an integrative theory, the affect infusion model (AIM; Forgas, 1995a). We then review recent evidence for/fffective influences on social memory, self- and other judgments, attitudes, strategic interaction, stereotyping, future forecasting and a range of other everyday psychological phenomena. We also consider the relevance of these findings for practitioners and professionals in applied areas such as health, counseling, clinical, educational, and organizational psychology. Key words: Affect, Thinking, Social cognition What is the influence of affective states on thinking, judg- ments, and behavior in everyday life? Arguably, affect re- mains perhaps the "last frontier" in our quest to understand the dynamics of human behavior. Although most of us intu- itively know that our feelings and moods can have a crucial influence on our mental life and actions, until recently we did not fully understand just how and why these influences oc- cur. A critical--and so far rather neglected--issue for clini- cal and applied psychology is thus to understand how subtle and often unconscious affective states impact on the thoughts, decisions, and actions of people. These influences can have wide-ranging consequences in a variety of applied domains. For example, even low-intensity moods can have a marked influence on how people respond to others, the com- munication strategies they prefer, the way they plan and use negotiating strategies, and the way they perceive and evalu- ate themselves and others (Forgas, 1998a, 1998b; 1999a, 1999b, 2002; Forgas & George, 2001). These effects have profound implications for clinical, counselling, organiza- tional, marketing, and consumer psychology. This work was supportedby a Special Investigatoraward from the Aus- tralian Research Council, and the Research Prize by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The contributions of Norman Chan, Simon Laharn, Joseph Ciarrochi, Stephanie Moylan, and Patrick Vargas to this project are gratefully acknowledged. Send correspondenceand reprint requests to: Joseph R Porgas, Schoolof Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia. E- mail: jp.forgas @ unsw.edu.au Most of these affective influences are subtle, subcon- scious, and difficult to detect introspectively. It is only as a result of the impressive growth of experimental research on affect during the past 20 years that we begin to understand the multifaceted influence of feelings on everything that peo- ple think and do. The aim of this article is to present an inte- grative review of past and present ideas about the role of af- fect in cognition and behavior, and in particular, to explore the role of subconscious mood states in how people think and behave in everyday social situations. In the first half we re- view early psychoanalytic and conditioning ideas, and more recent cognitive theories about the role of affect in thinking and behavior. An integrative model, the Affect Infusion Mod- el (AIM; Forgas, 1995a, 2002) will be briefly outlined as a comprehensive explanation of many of these effects. The second half of the article reviews a range of empirical studies demonstrating the influence of affective states in a va- riety of areas relevant to clinical, preventive, and applied psy- chology. It will be suggested that knowing how these affec- tive influences function, and how to control, compensate, and manage them represents an important aspect of clinical and applied psychology. The experiments considered here docu- ment the pervasive influence of affect on how people think, remember, and make judgments about themselves and oth- ers; how they behave and communicate in various social sit- uations; and how they make sense of their personal relation- ships. Knowing about these effects is important not only for 225