Goal-directed behavior relies on cognitive control, involving processes such as goal processing and maintenance, managing conflict, as well as flexible adaptation to changing contexts. By now, it is well established that the processing of multiple goals leads to processing costs. Moreover, evidence from evolutionary and cognitive science indicates that the affective relevance of external stimuli influences the allocation of processing resources, the recruitment of attention, and ultimately guides behavior. While it is agreed upon that affect can modulate the allocation of attention and (neuro- )cognitive resources for information processing, the influence of the affective relevance of information on different cognitive control processes requires further study. This symposium explores how the affective relevance of information influences cognitive control across different cognitive control tasks. These tasks include working memory tasks, reactivating goals after interruptions, switching between different goals, and managing interference. The symposium will draw on diverse methodological approaches, such as behavioral studies, neurophysiological measures, and a meta- analysis. The selected talks feature diverse affective materials and examine varying degrees of affective relevance for response selection in the selected paradigms. Plancher et al. show that negative emotion influences both processing and attentional maintenance in working memory, supporting models that propose an attentional trade-off between these two components. Radovic and Schubert examine how affective interruptions influence goal decay and reactivation of goals when resuming a task after an interruption. Langsdorf et al. demonstrate that processing asymmetries between neutral and affective tasks modulate intentional processes, i.e., the decisions select either task. Pourtois shows that value processing is not automatic but modulated by goal relevance, with EEG evidence indicating an early, perceptual locus for this effect, supporting models in which value and goals flexibly interact to guide information processing. Finally, in a meta-analysis, Dignath et al. show how task-irrelevant emotions impact performance in conflict tasks and proposes an integrative framework suggesting that emotion influences control through distinct mechanisms depending on valence, arousal, and processing stage. Together, this symposium aims to foster discussion and provide a synthesis on how the affective relevance of information impacts different aspects of cognitive control processes in challenging task conditions.