Affect Valuations Predict Emotional Response to Future Exam Success and Failure

Abstract

Abstract Does what a person desires to feel (affect valuation) predict their future affective reaction to salient life events? We tested this idea in the context of an exam, a salient achievement-oriented event for college students. One to two weeks prior to taking an exam, 180 university students rated their ideal affect, depression symptom severities, and provided affective forecasts for how they would react to exam failure and success. On the day when students received their exam scores, they rated their actual emotional response to the exam outcomes. Higher levels of ideal positive affect predicted greater positive affective responses to exam success. This prediction held even after controlling for affective forecasting, depression levels, and the exam score itself. Higher levels of ideal negative affect predicted greater negative affective reactions to exam failure, but did not survive parallel statistical controls. Results suggest the possibility that ideal affect performs motivational functions, particularly for positive affective states.