Does emotional valence affect performance in non-emotional categorization tasks?

In five experiments, a categorization task was used to test whether threatening emotional valence would automatically affect reactions, even when valence is task-irrelevant. Financial threat words (e.g., debts) required the same response as either anxiety words or pleasant words. In the first three experiments, emotional valence was task-irrelevant because all words were categorized according to surface features. No advantage was found for the compatible threat-anxiety combination compared to the incompatible threat-pleasant combination. This occurred irrespectively of whether emotional valence was disguised or made obvious as a stimulus dimension, and whether one or two response dimensions were used. A compatibility effect was observed only when emotional valence was task-relevant (Experiment 4), or when valence was irrelevant, but the words were categorized according to their meaning (Experiment 5). We conclude that stimulus meaning has to be processed in order for emotional valence to affect responses.