Effects of emotion, emotional tolerance, and emotional processing on reasoning.

Emotion plays a significant role in our reasoning even without awareness, perhaps especially for individuals who have difficulties tolerating strong, negative emotions. Opportunity for reflection may help such individuals decide when emotions should influence reasoning. Two studies attempted to clarify the relationships among reasoning, emotions, and emotion tolerance (measured with the Affect Intolerance Scale).

Fear and Derision: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Provaccine and Antivaccine Internet Memes.

The purpose of the study was to examine the characteristics of Internet memes created and disseminated by proponents and opponents of vaccinations. A quantitative content analysis was performed on 234 pro- and antivaccine memes culled from the vaccination fan pages with the greatest number of followers on Facebook. Coding variables included whether the meme was pro- or antivaccine, percentage of factually incorrect claims, mention of the out-group, persuasive appeals (emotion, fear, and rationality), degree of sarcasm, and number of reactions and shares.