Affect and its object are separable, so the same affective reaction can have different effects. Relevant principles from the affect-as-information approach include: first, the impact of affect depends on implicit attributions — what it appears to be about. Second, affect is always taken to be about whatever is currently mentally accessible. Affective reactions can therefore serve as appraisals of objects of judgment or of initial thoughts and opinions about such objects when they are more accessible. During problem solving, affect can serve as appraisals of thought style rather than thought content. Then, third, positive and negative affect serve as go and stop signals for current inclinations. Affective influences on cognition are therefore not fixed, but malleable and context-dependent.

情感及其对象是可分离的，因此相同的情感反应可能具有不同的效果。“信息即影响”方法的相关原则包括：首先，情感的影响取决于隐含的归因-它似乎是关于什么的。其次，影响力始终被认为与当前在心理上可获得的任何事物有关。因此，情感反应可以用作对判断对象的评估，或在更容易获得时对这些对象的初步想法和意见的评估。在解决问题期间，情感可以作为对思想风格的评估，而不是对思想内容的评估。然后，第三，积极和消极的影响作为当前倾向的停止信号。因此，对认知的情感影响不是固定的，而是可延展的并且取决于上下文。