Effects of cognitive feedback, emotional induction and social pressure on decisions related to cognitive performance with economic reward.

The main aim of this study was to investigate whether the effect of induced affective states, obtained through a false (positive vs. negative) feedback in a cognitive task, influenced participants’ choices in a consecutive cognitive task. We also investigated a possible effect of ‘social pressure’ on individual preferences, by introducing information about the percentage of difficulty level choices provided by other participants. The 3 x 2 experimental design involved the manipulation of two between-subjects variables: feedback (positive vs. negative) and social pressure (none vs. prudent vs. hazardous); 180 undergraduates (90 males), with mean age 23.99 (SD=2.89) participated in the experiment as unpaid volunteers. As expected, results showed that the feedback manipulation was highly effective. Results also showed that participants who received a negative feedback chose less difficult tasks, while those receiving a positive feedback preferred more difficult tasks. Some emotions partially mediated such effect. Instead, social pressure did not affect participants’ choices