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Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1027//1016-9040.6.3.194

Research on emotion conducted so far has ignored situations where the subject experiences a certain emotion, but where the external stimulus that evoked and upholds this emotion suddenly disappears. This kind of situation, however, is relatively common in everyday life. This article attempts to recognize certain consequences of those conditions under which the stimuli justifying our experience of such emotional states as fear or joy suddenly disappear. Research done to date by the author and colleagues indicates increased compliance of the subject when addressed with various requests, commands, or suggestions in the situation termed here “emotional seesaw.” The classical “live” example that illustrates this principle is the type of “good cop-bad cop” interrogation procedure. The probable mechanism underlying increased compliance under these conditions is connected with the fact that every emotion generates its own specific behavior program. When this program suddenly proves to be totally inadequate to new, modified external circumstances, the subject begins functioning “mindlessly.” This permits automatic reactions, which take no account for the peculiarity of the current situation. Another group of experiments presented in this article shows that the subject's cognitive functioning is disturbed under emotional seesaw conditions. Such a disturbance embraces not only simple cognitive operations like detection of facial expressions of emotion, but also more complex operations like arithmetical calculations done mentally. The article concludes that further research is needed regarding the consequences of sudden and unexpected withdrawal of stimuli that induce and uphold various emotions.

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