Valence
affective valence, affective valence and arousal
EVENTS
Concerning affective experience, we expected that enhancing mental imagery would lead to a decrease in the level of positive affective valence of larger magnitude and a increase in the level of arousal of a larger magnitude, compared to both the spontaneous and prevented use of mental imagery (3). Subsequently, we also expected that preventing mental imagery would lead to different magnitudes of change in positive affective valence and arousal, when compared to the control and enhanced mental imagery condition (4). To answer these hypotheses, we again used split-plot ANOVAs (separate for emotional valence and arousal), with planned comparisons. To see if the magnitude of the change in the variables were different depending on the condition, our main interest was again the interaction effects between condition and time for each affective measure.When comparing affective valence in all three conditions the results revealed a main effect of time, a main effect of condition, and an interaction effect. Thus, the results show that the participants level of positive valence decreased, however, as expected to different degrees in the different conditions. When comparing the conditions on reported valence post-manipulation with a simple main effect analysis (Sidak), no difference was found between the control and enhanced condition (When comparing valence in the spontaneous mental imagery condition (control) to the enhanced condition we found a main effect of time, no main effect of condition, but an interaction effect. The results indicate that although both conditions decreased in positive affective valence, this decrease was larger in the enhanced mental imagery condition.Similarly, when comparing the spontaneous mental imagery condition (control) to the prevented condition we found a main effect of time, a main effect of condition, and an interaction effect. The results show that although positive valence decreased in both conditions, it decreased less in the prevented imagery condition.Lastly, when comparing the enhanced and prevented conditions, we found a main effect of time, a main effect of condition, and an interaction effect. In line with our hypotheses, our results show that level of mental imagery used to process risky environmental events impacts the affective valence—the more mental imagery the participants used to process the events the more they decreased their positive affective valence.