Happiness by association: Breadth of free association influences affective states

Several studies have demonstrated that affective states influence the number of associations formed between remotely related concepts. Someone in a neutral or negative affective state might draw the association between cold and hot, whereas someone in a positive affective state might spontaneously form the more distant association between cold and sneeze. Could the reverse be true, that generating increasingly broad or narrow associations will put someone in a more or less positive affective state? We test this possibility by using verbal free association tasks, and asking whether the breadth of semantic associativity between cue words and generated responses might predict resulting affective states. Two experiments show that generating broader associations, regardless of their valence, changes affect; specifically, broader associations lowered negative affect and marginally increased positive affect over time. These findings carry implications for theories positing interactions between brain areas mediating associative processing and affect, and may hold promise for enhancing affect in clinical contexts.