Lecture 6: Emotion-Based Choice Flashcards
Nico Frijda
- emotions are lawful phenomena and can be studied
- the law of situational meaning
the law of situational meaning
emotions arise in response to the meaning structures of given situations
- different emotions arise in response to different meaning structures
the law of concern
emotions arise in response to events that are important to the individuals goals, motives, or concerns
- why emotions give control precedence
law of comparative feeling
intensity of emotion depends on the relationship between an event and some frame of reference against which the event is evaluated
John B. Watson
“the shock of an emotional stimulus throws the organism for the moment at least into a chaotic state”
Skinner
“we all know that emotions are useless and bad for our peace of mind and our blood pressure”
emotions are (past):
- disturbed perceptions
- convey biased judgements
- irrational (“something for women and children”)
- a source of confusion and mistakes
Blaise Pascal
“the heart has its own reason, which reason does not know”
Montesquieu
“a man of intelligence feels what others can only know”
Damasio
“emotions and the feelings are not a luxury, they are a means of communicating our states of mind to others, but they are also a way of guiding our own judgements and decisions”
- Phineas Gage case study
emotions are (we currently know):
- are crucial for intelligent action
- motivate us to act on our concerns
- are not always useful, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages
Bentham
in order to maximize, we need to be able to quantify and compare the amount of happiness/pleasure of possible acts
- measured using hedons and dolors
hedons and dolors
- hedons: units of pleasure
- dolors: units of pain
- decision-making = hedonic calculus
emotion = affect = valence
emotions can easily be integrated in evaluative judgements (utility/satisfaction)
- expressed on a single scale
- no need to radically change theory
affect and the value function
affect and the probability weighting function
affect ≠ emotion
- there is ambiguity about the meaning of valence
- there is a large number of distinct emotions
- each emotion has its own idiosyncratic experiential content, and hence motivates different behaviors
- thus, study the effect of individual emotions
problems with valence
- a “positive” emotion has to do with satisfaction (pride?)
- a “positive” emotion is one that motivates us to obey the rules (guilt/envy?)
- a “positive” emotion is one that exemplifies the virtues (love/resentment?)
regret theory
we feel regret which can influence outcome valuation
- we can predict feeling regret beforehand
- we take regret into account when choosing and choose to avoid it (regret aversion)
Kierkegaard
“I see it all perfectly; there are 2 possible situations – one can either do this or do that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it – you will regret both”
regret is good
- learning
- avoid future mistakes
animals experiencing regret
- chimpanzees and bonobos exhibit emotional responses to decision outcomes
- behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of regret in rat decision-making on a neuroeconomic task
distinctive physiology
- different areas of the brain are responsible for different things
- involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex (involved in the feeling of regret but not disappointment)
distinctive universal in antecedent events
everyone feels regret
distinctive thoughts, memories, images, subjective experiences
regret experienced in similar ways across cultures
Ekman’s criteria for basic emotions
- presence in other primates
- distinctive physiology
- distinctive universals in antecedent events
- rapid onset/brief duration
- automatic appraisal/unbidden occurrence
- distinctive appearance developmentally
- distinctive thoughts, memories, images, subjective experience
how do regret and disappointment differ
- disappointment is within your choice
- regret is in comparison to other decisions
the emotion process
appraisals of precipitating events -> emotional experience (affect, feelings, thoughts, action-tendencies, emotivations) -> behavioral response
feelings-is-for-doing
emotions are signals
- informational function
- communicational function
- motivational function
bad service encounter -> regret or disappointment -> complain
- regret -> switch
- disappointment -> negative word-of-mouth
good moods
when we are in good moods we:
- are better problem solvers
- more likely to remember happy events
- more risk-seeking
- more optimistic about the chance of favorable events
bad moods
when we are in bad moods we:
- are more likely to recall negative events and overestimate the chances of unfavorable events
- if also aroused, we make less discriminate use of information and fail to search for options
anticipated emotions
people are assumed to anticipate how they will feel about the outcomes of decisions and use their predictions to guide choice
- prepare us for the future
decision affect theory
a theory of choices between gambles based on anticipated pleasure
- people are expected to choose the option with greater subjective expected pleasure
- describes the emotions that follow from choices between gambles with monetary outcomes
Savage’s minimax principle of risky choice based on anticipated regret
asserts that people should select the alternative that minimizes their maximum regret
- unrealistic degree of risk aversion (too much focus on worst-case scenarios)
impact of regret
depends on the surprisingness of the joint outcome
partial and complete feedback
on rare occasions we receive feedback about what would have happened if we made a different decision
emotional amplification
the pleasure of winning and the pain of losing are more intense when outcomes are surprising
estimated utilities for both risky and riskless outcomes
concave downward for gains and concave upward for losses
moral emotions
those that are linked to the interests or welfare of society as a whole or of other people
- originate in social relationships and are built on reciprocal evaluations and judgements of the self and others
- guilt, shame, and embarrassment (can also include anger, remorse, and regret)
Robert Frank
- believes that emotions can act as commitment devices that help us to solve social dilemmas
- moral emotions can cause disutility making certain decisions less attractive
pro-socials vs pro-selfs
- guilt can motivate cooperation for pro-selfs (does not impact pro-socials as they would already act cooperatively)
- fear can decrease cooperation for pro-socials but not impact pro-selfs
shame
potentially the most complicated moral emotion and arises after a moral transgression or incompetence
- leads to threatened self-view and a heightened degree of self-awareness of others
- ashamed people often feel small, alone, powerless, helpless, and inferior to others
- related to submission, social avoidance, withdrawal, rejection, and disengagement from others
conflicting empirical evidence of shame
- some studies suggest that shame promotes withdrawal and avoidance behaviors
- other studies suggest that shame can promote approach behaviors
- some studies neutral
shame in the feeling-is-for-doing approach
- goal to deal with the threatened view of the self
- shame motivates approach behaviors to restore the self
- when not possible or too risky, shame motivates avoidance behaviors to protect the self
guilt
seen as much more positive emotion
- mainly arises after a moral transgression in which people have hurt, intentionally or unintentionally, another person
- focused on the harm and distress caused others
- linked to better perspective taking and feelings of empathy
guilt in the feeling-is-for-doing approach
became clear that guilt does not only have positive effects
- the duadic preoccupation that is central to experiences of guilt can lead to behavior that is negative for the outcomes of others around us
- when focusing on repairing the hurt relationship, people temporarily pay less attention to others and generally compensate at the expense of the resources allocated to other people
- guilt may induce self-punishment
