Abstract
Subjects rated their emotional responses to scenes from two contrasting types of audiovisual material (comedy and horror), the order or presentation being either comedy-horror or horror-comedy. Feelings of pleasantness and relaxation, together with ratings of the funniness of comedy scenes, were enhanced when subjects viewed the comedy scenes having previously viewed the horror scenes. Similarly, horror scenes were rated as more frightening and induced more unpleasant feelings when subjects had previously viewed the comedy scenes. This contrast effect in emotional response is discussed in relation to other studies of the effects of emotion on judgments. A number of theoretical approaches are considered in attempting to explain the findings.
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This research was supported by Social Science Research Council Grant No. C00230043. The authors are grateful to J. Richard Eiser for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Manstead, A.S.R., Wagner, H.L. & MacDonald, C.J. A contrast effect in judgments of own emotional state. Motiv Emot 7, 279–290 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00991678
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00991678