Alice M. Isen was an American psychologist and Professor of Psychology and of Marketing at Cornell University.
A prominent and widely published scholar, her research concerned the influence of "positive affect" on social interaction, thought processes, and decision making, including applications to organizational behavior, medical decision making, doctor-patient interaction, issues in services marketing, and issues related to brand equity and loyalty.
According to Fredrickson:Isen’s dissertation, chaired by Walter Mischel and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, tested her intuition-based hypotheses regarding the “warm glow of success.” Using clever behavioral measures, she found that people randomly assigned to experience success were more generous, helpful, and attentive to others, relative to those randomly assigned to experience failure or to receive no performance feedback whatsoever.
[3] Isen found that positive emotions facilitate creativity, successful problem-solving and negotiation, as well as thoroughness and efficiency during the decision-making process.
[4] Her work on this particular area has been applied to different fields such as medical diagnosis (e.g. facilitating memory retrieval, organizational efficiency).