Theory L10 - Emotion & Decision Making Flashcards
What is bounded rationality?
- Rationality is bounded by emotion
- Herbert simon - in order to have anything like a complete theory of human rationality, we have to understand whole role emotion plays in it
- emotion plays a big part in most if not all aspects of life - in terms of making decisions, and shouldn’t be considered to be lesser to rational processing.
- Emotion shapes our attention and focus.
Broadly, what is the relationship between emotions and decision making.
- emotions are the main driver of most meaningful decisions - eg. purchasing a car - do we care more about how it makes us feel or its specs?
- Decisions can be thought of as a vehicle by which emotions guide attempts at increasing positive feelings and decreasing negative feelings (or the opposite in mental illness)
- Following decisions, we typically feel NEW emotions or MORE OF the same emotion - even if the decision wasn’t based on an emotion
What are integral emotions?
Emotions that arise from the judgement at hand.
They operate at a conscious and non conscious level
How do integral emotions affect judgements and decision making?
- Serve as a BENEFICIAL GUIDE - emotions can drive actions and judgements.
Eg. Anger motivates people to respond to injustice and leads to viewing things as being less risky.
Eg. Anticipation of regret leads to lessen risk taking - Create BIAS - can lead you to do something that’s not normative
These are INFLUENTIAL and DIFFICULT TO OVERRIDE.
Eg. Situations of low occurrence but high loss elicit a feeling of dread (terrorism).
What was the consequentialist perspective for risk evaluation, and outcomes?
Anticipated outcomes and subjective probabilities > cognitive evaluation > decision > outcomes (incl. emotions)
and that feelings don’t really impact anything, and are just a result of cognitive evaluation
Responses to risky situations result in part from direct emotional influences - worry and anxiety
people are assumed to evaluate risky alternatives at a cognitive level - but largely based on probability of desired consequences.
what was Lowewenstein (2001)’s ‘risk and feelings mode’l?
Anticipated outcomes, subjective probabilities as well as other factors (vividness, immediacy, background moods) leads to cognitive evaluation and feelings.
Feelings does feed back into the cog evaluation, and influence it, as well as influence the behaviour.
‘decision’ in the original model is switched to ‘behaviour’ as not all actions are preceded by a decision - eg. reactions.
What are incidental emotions?
These are emotions that CARRY OVER from one situation to the next, affective situations that are unrelated to that emotion.
Typically occurs WITHOUT AWARENESS.
Eg. bad mood = you’d make decisions that you probably wouldnt if you were in a better mood.
How do incidental emotions influence Judgements and decision making?
- Incidental mood influences RISK PERCEPTION. When primed with positive affect, there is a decrease in fatality estimates, and the opposite when primed with negative affect.
- Mood affects judgements of wellbeing - Schwartz & Clore showed that incidental emotions can affect general happiness and life satisfaction (weather), when it is not made aware/salient to them.
What did Schwarz & Clore do?
Weather experiment!!!!
Interviewers rang up students on campus.
indirect prime - asked about weather nonchalantly
direct - directly asking how the weather affects their mood
control - didn’t talk about weather at all
saw an effect for the control group - rainy days = less happy
What is the affect infusion model?
Suggests that the DEGREE of affect infusion into judgements varies along a processing continuum.
so the INTENSITY of the emotion varies and has different influences on the judgement.
the AFFECT is more likely to influence judgement in COMPLEX and UNANTICIPATED situations.
How does emotional intelligence affect judgement?
- may MODERATE judgements and decision making.
- EI may reduce effect of incidental emotion.
- individuals with higher EI show less impact of incidental anxiety on risk estimates when informed about the incidental source of their anxiety.
Possible guarding against bias?
What possibly moderate the effect of incidental emotions on JDM?
- Emotional Intelligence
- Affect Infusion Model - the degree of affect
Relationship between emotional VALENCE and JDM?
- Valence cannot account for all influences of affect on judgement and choice
- Emotions of the SAME VALENCE often differ in essential ways:
- Antecedent appraisal
- depth of processing
- brain hemispheric activation
- facial expressions
- Autonomic responses
- CNS activity
What is the appraisal tendency framework?
- Links appraisal processes associated with specific emotions to different judgement.
- Predicts that emotions of the SAME valence can have OPPOSING influences (fear and anger) on choices and judgements, where OPPOSITE valence emotions can exert SIMILAR influences (Anger and happiness)
- Emotions each have a action tendency or implicit goals to signal adaptive response
Assumptions:
•Discrete cognitive dimensions differentiate emotional experience
•Emotions serve a coordination role, automatically triggering a set of behavioural, physiological, experiential, and communicative responses
•Emotions have motivational properties that depend on the emotion’s intensity and qualitative character
Evidence supporting ATF?
(Appraisal tendency framework)
- Keltner (1993) - showed that induced, incidental emotions influenced causal attributions.
Primed Anger > increased attributions of individual control, responsibility for life outcomes
Primed Sadness > increased attributions of situational control as responsible for life circumstances.
therefore, although BOTH -VELY VALENCED, appraisal of control influences the attribution.
- Lerner & Keltner (2000,2001) examined the effects of anger and fear on risk perceptions.
- both dispositional and induced anger lead to more optimistic judgements of future events
- both dispositional and induced fear lead to pessimistic judgements of future events.
Their appraisal of certainty and control (risk) was mediated by causal effects of fear and anger on optimism (their appraisal of their optimism and how it was affected)
- Desteno (2000) - Found differential effects of anger and sadness on judgements of likelihood, despite both being NEGATIVELY VALENCED.
Anger –> increased likelihood judgements in angering events and lessened in sad events.
Incidental mood affects estimation of RISK
