Activation of affective information and stereotyping: Does the salience of affective information matter?

It is generally assumed that happiness increases reliance on stereotypes whereas sadness decreases it. However, recent findings suggest that the mere activation of affective information leads to opposite effects (i.e., a greater reliance on stereotypes following the activation of sad than of happy information). The present study tested whether these contradictions were attributable to the salience of affective information. Consistent with previous findings, participants primed with sad words relied more on stereotypes in an impression formation task than participants primed with happy words. However, contrary with the expectations, the salience of affective information did not affect the results. It is argued that this absence of effect is due to participants in the present study remaining unconscious of the activation of affective information whatever its salience. The results of this research replicated the intriguing effects of the activation of affective information and suggest that neither conscious feelings nor consciousness of affective information are necessary conditions for their occurrence.