Emotions and information seeking: how does emotion manifest in infor-mation seeking behavior?

Information seeking behavior arises when one feels a void in his/her knowledge which inspires one to acquire new information. The central point in explaining behavior is the fact that many features influence its occurrence, and emotions are considered to be a major element involved in human information behavior.  Also, Information seeking is a positive and negative emotional experience. The aim was to survey the role of emotions in information behavior.

  Library research method was applied to study theoretical foundations and conceptual relationships of emotions in relation to information needs and related concepts. 

By conceptual studies of the models process of information retrieval behavior of Kuhlthau and Nahl, it was found that emotional factors are very important in information retrieval and information-seeking behavior, which is influenced by negative (uncertainty, fear, anger) and positive emotions (happy, confident, satisfied).  Negative emotions increase at the beginning and over time and in the process of searching for information, decreases, while positive emotions intensifies.  Also,  these results indicate that positive emotions may help individuals acquire information to resolve an existing problem, whereas negative emotions may aid individuals acquire information when there is no apparent problem.

   In order to solve information need and to attain appropriate   desirable feedback, it is necessary that emotions be well identified and understood by both the user and the information systems, so  they could be better controlled.