Abstract This research provides a novel analysis of the impact of hope and hopelessness on judgment, examining how they influence the use of judgment‐relevant thoughts. Hope and hopelessness are two ends of an emotional continuum for which the confidence and pleasantness appraisals are mismatched. That is, hope is appraised as a pleasant state that is associated with uncertainty. In contrast, hopelessness is appraised as an unpleasant state that is associated with confidence. The aim of this research is to show that these appraisals are critical for predicting how these emotions influence the impact of thoughts on attitudes. In three experiments we manipulated these emotions along with their appraisals and examined the impact on thought reliance and attitude change toward healthy and unhealthy foods, people with disabilities, and self‐evaluation. It was predicted and found that when a pleasantness appraisal was salient, hope increased the use of thoughts relative to hopelessness. In contrast, when a confidence appraisal was salient, hopelessness increased the use of thoughts compared to hope.
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