Affective Control in Conflict Tasks: A Meta-Analysis on the Congruency Sequence Effect

Emotions influence how we control our thoughts and actions, but theories propose different mechanisms and make opposing predictions how valence and/or arousal modulate control exertion. This meta-analysis of 34 studies (72 experiments, N = 3,748) examined whether and how task-irrelevant emotional stimuli influence the congruency sequence effect (CSE), a widely used measure of control in conflict tasks like Stroop. Overall, results showed increased CSEs following negative compared to positive stimuli across a variety of different experimental procedures (g = .12). This negativity-boost for control was stronger in studies that used tonic (sustained) affect inductions, presented non-threatening stimuli, controlled for feature-binding confounds, and employed the flanker task. In contrast, arousal showed opposing effects depending on the overlap between emotional and task stimuli, as well as the format of the emotional stimuli—for example, high-arousing words or stimuli embedded within the task appeared to facilitate control. The valence findings support affective control accounts suggesting that negative affect enhances control adjustment. The arousal findings are compatible with theories assuming that emotional stimuli interact with attentional resources. Based on these results, we offer a tentative integrative framework that combines elements from several existing models to explain how emotional stimuli can interact with control operations.