Unconscious and conscious processes  (Page 2/4)

In the study they separated out these natural impulses (which I would say are unconscious thoughts) into the positive ones and the negative ones:

• Inhibitory Control (1C). The capacity to suppress positively toned impulses and thereby resist the execution of inappropriate approachtendencies. "I can easily resist talking out of turn, even when I'm excited and want to express an idea."
• Behavioral Activation (BA). The capacity to suppress negatively toned impulses and thereby resist the execution of inappropriate avoidancetendencies. "Even when I am very tired, it is easy for me to get myself out of bed in the morning."

Your positive emotions might cause you to want do something and because you are so positive about it there is that strong, impulsive drive which could cause you to do things. It is the opposite with negative emotions, if you feel very strongly these feelings are going to cause you to do things and think things automatically in order to satisfy the feeling.

This "impulsive drive" as I called it in the previous paragraph, is related to a persons level of arousal. Arousal would be someones stronger, more potent emotions and therefore would cause someone to become impulsive because the drive is powerful. If you are feeling very strongly (such as high arousal), then you are going to be consciously and unconsciously motivated to think and do things you wouldn't otherwise do. In addition, I already mentioned how even without feeling strongly, people have many different reactions in a minute (such as slight changes in affect). These probably increase if you are feeling more strongly. That makes sense, when you are talking to someone and you say something that gets a reaction, the other person usually changes their expression more or something.

The amount of arousal someone experiences can change from normal to high in a certain time period, or high to low in a similar time period - this was defined in the study:

• Rising Reactivity (RR). The rate at which general arousal rises from its normal to its peak level of intensity. "I often find myself becomingsuddenly excited about something."
• Falling Reactivity (FR). The rate at which general arousal decreases from its peak to its normal levels of intensity. "I usually fall asleep atnight within ten minutes."

So, as I have said, a higher arousal rate is going to result in more reactions from you, or as the people who wrote that study called it, "rising reactivity". A higher arousal rate is also going to cause your attention to change in some way, too. I would think it would cause your attention to increase normally, but it is possible that more excitement or arousal could cause you to pay less attention, though usually when people have more energy they are more attentive. Here is from the study again how they defined someone's ability to focus their attention and someone shifting their attention:

• Attentional Focusing (AF). The capacity to intentionally hold the attentional focus on desired channels and thereby resist unintentionalshifting to irrelevant or distracting channels. "My concentration is easily disrupted if there are people talking in the room around me."
• Attentional Shifting (AS). The capacity to intentionally shift the attentional focus to desired channels, thereby avoiding unintentional focusingon particular channels. "It is usually easy for me to alternate between two different tasks."