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Effects of emotional content on human reasoning: a systematic review

Abstract:

Reasoning and emotions have many complex relations which can hinder or benefit logical processing. Intending to investigate the influence of affective content on reasoning, we conducted a systematic review on scientific articles published on the Capes Journals Portal, Scielo, PubMed and Academic Google databases, retrieved using the descriptors (affective content OR evaluative content OR emotion*) AND (reasoning). After analysis and application of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 17 papers, two master’s dissertations and one doctorate thesis remained. Only one study was conducted in Brazil. Research participants showed a worse performance in reasoning tasks composed by negative emotional content. However, negative emotional content influenced deductive reasoning positively when they proved to be relevant to the task. Hence, the reviewed studies suggest an importance of emotions for human reasoning.

Keywords:
reasoning; emotion; emotional contents

Instituto de Psicologia da Universidade de São Paulo Av. Prof. Mello Moraes, 1721 - Bloco A, sala 202, Cidade Universitária Armando de Salles Oliveira, 05508-900 São Paulo SP - Brazil - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: revpsico@usp.br