Lecture 11 Flashcards
1
Q
What is the balance for a decision?
A
Cognitive and affective factors
2
Q
What is integral affect?
A
- Affect resides on the matter itself, attributes and characteristics are about the matter = integrally connected to matter of the decision itself
- e.g more likely to say yes to someone we met on a trip to go out next week, whereas more likely to say no to the dentist
- All about focal matter of decision and carrying affect
3
Q
What is incidental affect?
A
- Affect that is not connected to the matter itself
- e.g won the lottery and friend asks to decorate his house = more likely to say yes because you are happy, but if you lose a lawsuit, you are more likely to saw no
- Affect is about an extraneous event = unrelated circumstances
4
Q
What is anticipated affect?
A
- Will we be satisfied with our decisions or will we feel regret
- Anticipate the affect that has not yet materialised
- Decision we have made
5
Q
What is post-decisional affect?
A
- After the decision, are we satisfied or regret
- Decision we will have made as anticipated by ourselves prior to decision
6
Q
What did Zajonc’s say?
A
- Affective reactions to stimuli may precede cognitive reactions = preferences need no inferences
- Affective relations are quick, inescapable, and persistent, difficult to verbalise = English language does not provide enough adjectives to describe feedback, not as many as one actually feels = not describing the thing itself, but oneself
- Had ppts give pos/neg performance feedback after believing they were good at the task, ppts were debriefed that everything was fake and measured mood again, mood stuck
- Affect is in service of making decisions on the basis of minimal cognitive engagement
- If you are an organism with one mechanism (matter how effective), you do not have affect, as you are not flexible to make decisions = response mediated with affect needs time = need to able to think about it
7
Q
What is the mere exposure effect?
A
- Japanese ideographs were presented 0, 1,3, 9 or 27 times (ppt does not know material)
- Ppts meant to recognise stimuli again, but they do not recognise them, not aware that they have seen them BUT they have preferences
- Substantial correlation to subjective affect to stimulus exposure = like what you see
- Correlation with stimulus exposure and subjective recognition = recognise what you see
- BUT subject affect and recognition are not connected = many things are liked but are not recognised, and things that are recognised but not liked very much
8
Q
What did Damasio do?
A
- Thoughts are largely made from images, including perceptual and symbolic representations
- Almost like a mindmap of a memory/image where feelings and sensations are noted
- Images become marked by pos/neg feelings linked directly/indirectly to bodily states
- Images then become alarm signals, or beacons of incentive
- Somatic markers increase accuracy and efficiency of the decision process = absence of markers degrades decision performance
- Affect is in the background = prone to respond in some ways = but we still say how we will respond
9
Q
What is the risk-as-feelings hypothesis?
A
- Feelings can arise without cognitive mediation
- Impact of cognitive evaluations on behaviour is mediated partly by affective responses
- Affect can be so dominant, it takes over the decision = affective value determines decisions
- Emotions sometimes produce behavioural responses that depart from the best course of action
- Emotional reactions to a risky situation often diverge from cognitive evaluations of risk severity e.g fear at dentist
- Emotional reactions may then exert dominating influence on behaviour which is not adaptive e.g interpersonal conflict
- Vividness and concreteness make affect more salient, and increase its influence in the decision process
10
Q
What is the risk-as-feelings study?
A
- Visceral information is immediately linked to affective responses
- Is risk information disregarded under conditions of hot as compared to cool decision making
- Ppts received descriptions of cookies vs freshly baked cookies when processing risk information about a gamble they can make to win such cookies
- Gamble to draw one card of 10, win = eat as many cookies and complete participation, lose = no cookies, stay in lab and do raven matrices
- OR not paly the gamble = no cookies and a few questionnaires
- Two risk conditions: cards either 8:2 winning: losing cards or 6:4 in the stack
- Participants are sensitive to risk only in the non-visceral condition where cookies are only described = more people choose low risk in non-visceral condition
- Win-chances were seen higher in visceral condition (visceral = cookies are seen as more pleasant to eat in case of winning)
- Mood did not differ between conditions
11
Q
What are the implications of the risk-as-feelings study?
A
- Manipulations enhancing the sensory aspects of appetitive stimuli promote impulsive behaviour
- Focus of attention is narrowed on object of desire, on present instead of future
- The more visceral, proximal information is available, the stronger the influence of immediate motivation, and elicited emotional states
- Similar to Kahneman’s two processes: slow/deliberate vs fast/unconscious
12
Q
What is the relation with integral affect?
A
- Inverse relation between perceived risk and perceived benefit = high risk, high reward
- Correlation that might exist in the environment BUT in people’s minds there is a negative correlation e.g vaccines - low risk, high benefit, or alcohol - high risk, low benefit BECAUSE of affect
- If affect is positive = perceived as high benefit, low risk and vice versa
- People’s overall impression of an activity in terms of affect impacts on their judgements of its attributes
- Ppts evaluated a number of hazard activities in terms of liking then rated risk and benefit for each activity
- Liked activities show a pattern of low risk/high benefit, and disliked activities were high risk/low benefit
13
Q
What were the studies by Finucane?
A
1) Under time pressure, elaborative thinking is limited, judgements have to rely on affect more than under no time pressure
- Ppts rated activities in terms of risk/benefit under no/time pressure
- Stronger negative correlation under time pressure, with no time pressure, less dramatic correlations, with little significance
2) Raising/Lowering liking of alternative should impact on risk and benefit judgements
- Ppts gave some ratings of technologies risks and benefits, read a vignette containing manipulated info about risk/benefit
- Ppts repeated their ratings of risks/benefits
- Cognitively: Second ratings for non-manipulated dimension should not change, affect heuristic view: they should change
- Manipulated features influence unmanipulated ones (negative correlation from non-manipulated to manipulated)
14
Q
What is affect-as-information?
A
- Affect as a cue for judgements = mental shortcut
- Students write about a happy/sad life event or give a telephone interview, later judgements about life satisfaction are mood-congruent
- Ready-made cue is more efficient than weighting pros/cons, retrieving information from memory
- Is decision is complex or mental resources are limited
15
Q
What is the mood manipulation exp?
A
- Roulette game: ppts receive chips equivalent to ppt credit that can be put at risk or win more for a prize
- Either given candies or not: makes them mildly elated - influences mood for 10-15 minutes
- Ppts indicate the winning probability at which they would agree to take a gamble of a certain risk level
- Mildly elated subjects tended to be more risk averse than neutral subjects when the risk was medium or high but not when the risk was low
- Positive mood makes people risk-averse if stakes are high
- Thought-listing results: focus on loss is greater for happy participants than controls when stakes are high, affect can change perceived utility of gains and losses
16
Q
What is the relationship of fear and anger on risk perception?
A
- Selections of emotions that fall on opposite sides of certainty and control appraisal dimensions: fear and anger
- Hypothesis: Anger = certainty appraisal = optimistic risk assessments & Fear = uncertainty appraisal = pessimistic risk assessment
- Used fear survey schedule 2, Spielberger trait-anxiety scale and anger scale
- Risk perception via perception of risk questionnaire with 12 death causes are risk-related
- Fear was positively related to perceived risk, anger was negatively related to perceived risk
17
Q
What is the study looking at unconscious thought?
A
- Deliberation-without-attention effect?
- Multi-attribute stimuli with best choice predetermined and ppts make their choice EITHER after a few minutes of distraction, after a few minutes of deliberation, or immediately
- First choice yields best choice
- Criticisms include replicability, control condition lacking, alternative explanations
