Emotions in decision-making

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One way of thinking holds that the mental process of decision-making is (or should be) rational: a formal process based on optimizing utility. [1] Rational thinking and decision-making does not leave much room for strong emotions. [2] In fact, emotions are often considered irrational occurrences that may distort reasoning. [3]

Contents

However, there are presently theories and research for both rational decision-making and emotional decision-making focusing on the important role of emotions in decision-making and the mental process and logic on the important role in rational decision-making.

Loewenstein and Lerner divide emotions during decision-making into two types: those anticipating future emotions and those immediately experienced while deliberating and deciding. Damasio formulated the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH), that proposes a mechanism by which emotional processes can guide (or bias) behavior, particularly decision-making. Pfister and Böhm believe that "the issue of rationality should be based on the validity of emotional evaluations rather than on formal coherence."

The Loewenstein-Lerner classification

Anticipated emotions

Loewenstein and Lerner divide emotions during decision-making into two types: those anticipating future emotions and those immediately experienced while deliberating and deciding. Anticipated (or expected) emotions are not experienced directly, but are expectations of how the person will feel once gains or losses associated with that decision are experienced. [4] A great deal of research has focused on the risk/return spectrum that is considered in most decisions. For example, students may anticipate regret when deciding which section of a class is best to register for, [5] or participants in a weight-loss plan might anticipate the pleasure they will feel if they lose weight, versus the negative feelings unsuccessful efforts may engender. [6]

Generally, it is the contemplation of incremental losses or gains that generates anticipated emotions in decision-makers, as opposed to their overall condition. This means that an investor who imagines losing a small amount of money will generally focus with disappointment on the lost investment, rather than with pleasure on the overall amount still owned. Similarly, a dieter who anticipates losing two pounds may imagine feeling pleasure even though those two pounds are a very small percentage of what needs to be lost overall.

Also, decision-makers tend to compare a possible result of a decision against what could have happened, rather than to their current state: for instance, game participants who could win $1000 and end up with nothing base their disappointment on the loss of the hoped-for prize, rather than on the fact that they have no less money than they had when they began the game. This process, and the anticipation of such emotion, is referred to as a counterfactual comparison.

Finally, decision-makers tend to weight possible outcomes differently based on the amount of delay between the choice and the outcome. Decisions made with a time delay – intertemporal choice – tend to involve different weights on outcomes depending on their delay, involving hyperbolic discounting and affective forecasting. These effects are then connected to anticipated emotions as the decision is being contemplated.

Immediate emotions

True emotions experienced while decision-making are termed immediate emotions, integrating cognition with somatic or bodily experienced components within the autonomic nervous system and outward emotional expressions. These may or may not be connected to the decision at hand, however; while contemplation of the decision’s consequences may give rise to immediate emotions, known as anticipatory or integral influences, immediate emotions can also be related to the current environment or the dispositional affect of the person. Although unrelated to the decision under consideration, this type of emotion can still impact the decision-making process as an incidental influence. [7]

Immediate emotions tend to operate differently from anticipated emotions. First, when they are intense they tend to negate the probability of the possible outcome; for example, a fear of flying experienced while deciding how to travel may lead a person to choose driving even though air safety statistics would show air travel to be statistically less likely to present a danger. The intense emotions can exact a higher influence on the decision than the probabilities under consideration. Also, immediate emotions can be very sensitive to how vivid the possible outcome is to the decision-maker. Again, a fear of flying may be enhanced by the vividness of the mental image of a plane crash may be in the mind of the decision-maker. Finally, how soon an outcome may happen impacts the related immediate emotions: the sooner the impending possible outcome, the more intense the emotion associated with that event. Overall, these emotions are real, experienced emotions, as opposed to those anticipated while thinking about possible outcomes, and as such can very powerfully impact decision-making. [8]

Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis

The somatic marker hypothesis (SMH), formulated by Antonio Damasio, proposes a mechanism by which emotional processes can guide (or bias) behavior, particularly decision-making. [9] [10]

Emotions, as defined by Damasio, are changes in both body and brain states in response to different stimuli. [11] Physiological changes (e.g., muscle tone, heart rate, endocrine release, posture, facial expression, etc.) occur in the body and are relayed to the brain where they are transformed into an emotion that tells the individual something about the stimulus that they have encountered. Over time, emotions and their corresponding bodily change(s) become associated with particular situations and their past outcomes.

When making decisions, these physiological signals (or ‘somatic markers’) and their evoked emotion are consciously or unconsciously associated with their past outcomes and bias decision-making towards certain behaviors while avoiding others. [11] For instance, when a somatic marker associated with a positive outcome is perceived, the person may feel happy and motivated to pursue that behavior. When a somatic marker associated with the negative outcome is perceived, the person may feel sad and the emotion may act as an internal alarm to warn the individual to avoid a course of action. These situation-specific somatic states based on, and reinforced by, past experiences help to guide behavior in favor of more advantageous choices and therefore are adaptive.

According to the SMH, two distinct pathways reactivate somatic marker responses. In the first pathway, emotion can be evoked by the changes in the body that are projected to the brain—called the "body loop". For instance, encountering a feared object like a snake may initiate the fight-or-flight response and cause fear. In the second pathway, cognitive representations of the emotions can be activated in the brain without being directly elicited by a physiological response—called the "as-if body loop". For instance, imagining an encounter with a snake would initiate a similar flight-or-fight response "as-if" you were in that particular situation (albeit perhaps a much weaker one). In other words, the brain can anticipate expected bodily changes, which allows the individual to respond faster to external stimuli without waiting for an event to actually occur. [12]

According to Dunn, "the somatic marker hypothesis proposes that ‘somatic marker’ biasing signals from the body are represented and regulated in the emotion circuitry of the brain, particularly the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), to help regulate decision-making in situations of complexity and uncertainty". Therefore, in situations of complexity and uncertainty, the marker signals allow the brain to recognise the situation and respond quickly. [13]

Pfister and Böhm's framework

Pfister and Böhm (2008) have developed a classification of how emotions function in decision-making that conceptualizes an integral role for emotions, rather than simply influencing decision-making. [14]

The four roles played by emotions in this framework are:

This framework can help in exploring such concepts as ambivalence, tendencies toward particular types of action, and sustaining difficult choices over time.

Positive and negative emotions

Research done by Isen and Patrick put forth the theory of "mood maintenance" which states that happy decision-makers are reluctant to gamble. In other words, happy people decide against gambling, since they would not want to undermine the happy feeling. [15]

Alternatively, the influence of negative feelings at the time of decision-making was studied by Raghunathan and Tuan Pham (1999). They conducted three experiments in gambling decisions and job selection decisions, where unhappy subjects were found to prefer high-risk/high-reward options unlike anxious subjects who preferred low-risk/low-reward options. They stated that "anxiety and sadness convey distinct types of information to the decision-maker and prime different goals." It was found that "while anxiety primes an implicit goal of uncertainty reduction, sadness primes an implicit goal of reward replacement". [16] Thus emotions cannot simply be classified as positive or negative as we need to consider the consequences of the emotions in ultimate decision-making.

State-dependent remembering

Another important factor is the memory of events in decision making. The mood someone has works as "a retrieval cue" whereby happy feelings make positive materials come to mind which in turn have great impact on the decisions that are made. The same is true of negative feelings. [17] Bower coined the term state-dependent remembering for this phenomenon. [18] Bower and others stated that emotions and feelings cannot be extracted from the human mind. The emotions felt in a particular situation will be recorded in the emotional memory and can be activated when the person faces a similar situation or has to make a difficult decision in a short period of time. Often the decision maker is unaware of previous experiences in similar situations. [18] [19]

Impact

Much research has been conducted on the various impacts of emotion on decision-making. Studies indicate the complexity and breadth of those impacts. Listed below are some examples of their results.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emotion</span> Conscious subjective experience of humans

Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.

According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, a feeling is "a self-contained phenomenal experience"; and feelings are "subjective, evaluative, and independent of the sensations, thoughts, or images evoking them". The term feeling is closely related to, but not the same as, emotion. Feeling may for instance refer to the conscious subjective experience of emotions. The study of subjective experiences is called phenomenology. Psychotherapy generally involves a therapist helping a client understand, articulate, and learn to effectively regulate the client's own feelings, and ultimately to take responsibility for the client's experience of the world. Feelings are sometimes held to be characteristic of embodied consciousness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decision-making</span> Cognitive process to choose a course of action or belief

In psychology, decision-making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rational or irrational. The decision-making process is a reasoning process based on assumptions of values, preferences and beliefs of the decision-maker. Every decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonio Damasio</span> Portuguese neuroscientist (born 1944)

Antonio Damasio is a Portuguese neuroscientist. He is currently the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, as well as Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology, at the University of Southern California, and, additionally, an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. He was previously the chair of neurology at the University of Iowa for 20 years. Damasio heads the Brain and Creativity Institute, and has authored several books: his work, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain (2010), explores the relationship between the brain and consciousness. Damasio's research in neuroscience has shown that emotions play a central role in social cognition and decision-making.

<i>Descartes Error</i> 1994 book by António Damásio

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain is a 1994 book by neuroscientist António Damásio describing the physiology of rational thought and decision, and how the faculties could have evolved through Darwinian natural selection. Damásio refers to René Descartes' separation of the mind from the body as an error because reasoning requires the guidance of emotions and feelings conveyed from the body. Written for the layperson, Damásio uses the dramatic 1848 railroad accident case of Phineas Gage as a reference for incorporating data from multiple modern clinical cases, enumerating damaging cognitive effects when feelings and reasoning become anatomically decoupled. The book provides an analysis of diverse clinical data contrasting a wide range of emotional changes following frontal lobe damage as well as lower (medulla) and anterior areas of the brain such as the anterior cingulate. Among his experimental evidence and testable hypotheses, Damásio presents the "somatic marker hypothesis", a proposed mechanism by which emotions guide behavior and decision-making, and positing that rationality requires emotional input. He argues that René Descartes' "error" was the dualist separation of mind and body, rationality and emotion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Somatic marker hypothesis</span> Hypothesis that emotional processes guide or bias decision-making

The somatic marker hypothesis, formulated by Antonio Damasio and associated researchers, proposes that emotional processes guide behavior, particularly decision-making.

Affective forecasting, also known as hedonic forecasting or the hedonic forecasting mechanism, is the prediction of one's affect in the future. As a process that influences preferences, decisions, and behavior, affective forecasting is studied by both psychologists and economists, with broad applications.

The affect heuristic is a heuristic, a mental shortcut that allows people to make decisions and solve problems quickly and efficiently, in which current emotion—fear, pleasure, surprise, etc.—influences decisions. In other words, it is a type of heuristic in which emotional response, or "affect" in psychological terms, plays a lead role. It is a subconscious process that shortens the decision-making process and allows people to function without having to complete an extensive search for information. It is shorter in duration than a mood, occurring rapidly and involuntarily in response to a stimulus. Reading the words "lung cancer" usually generates an affect of dread, while reading the words "mother's love" usually generates a feeling of affection and comfort. The affect heuristic is typically used while judging the risks and benefits of something, depending on the positive or negative feelings that people associate with a stimulus. It is the equivalent of "going with your gut". If their feelings towards an activity are positive, then people are more likely to judge the risks as low and the benefits high. On the other hand, if their feelings towards an activity are negative, they are more likely to perceive the risks as high and benefits low.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Affect (psychology)</span> Experience of feeling or emotion

Affect, in psychology, is the underlying experience of feeling, emotion, attachment, or mood. It encompasses a wide range of emotional states and can be positive or negative. Affect is a fundamental aspect of human experience and plays a central role in many psychological theories and studies. It can be understood as a combination of three components: emotion, mood, and affectivity. In psychology, the term affect is often used interchangeably with several related terms and concepts, though each term may have slightly different nuances. These terms encompass: emotion, feeling, mood, emotional state, sentiment, affective state, emotional response, affective reactivity, disposition. Researchers and psychologists may employ specific terms based on their focus and the context of their work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regret</span> Negative conscious and emotional reaction to personal past acts and behaviours

Regret is the emotion of wishing one had made a different decision in the past, because the consequences of the decision one did make were unfavorable.

The Iowa gambling task (IGT) is a psychological task thought to simulate real-life decision making. It was introduced by Antoine Bechara, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio and Steven Anderson, then researchers at the University of Iowa. It has been brought to popular attention by Antonio Damasio in his best-selling book Descartes' Error.

An emotional bias is a distortion in cognition and decision making due to emotional factors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ventromedial prefrontal cortex</span> Body part

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a part of the prefrontal cortex in the mammalian brain. The ventral medial prefrontal is located in the frontal lobe at the bottom of the cerebral hemispheres and is implicated in the processing of risk and fear, as it is critical in the regulation of amygdala activity in humans. It also plays a role in the inhibition of emotional responses, and in the process of decision-making and self-control. It is also involved in the cognitive evaluation of morality.

Group emotion refers to the moods, emotions and dispositional affects of a group of people. It can be seen as either an emotional entity influencing individual members' emotional states or the sum of the individuals' emotional states.

Social emotions are emotions that depend upon the thoughts, feelings or actions of other people, "as experienced, recalled, anticipated or imagined at first hand". Examples are embarrassment, guilt, shame, jealousy, envy, elevation, empathy, and pride. In contrast, basic emotions such as happiness and sadness only require the awareness of one's own physical state. Therefore, the development of social emotions is tightly linked with the development of social cognition, the ability to imagine other people's mental states, which generally develops in adolescence. Studies have found that children as young as 2 to 3 years of age can express emotions resembling guilt and remorse. However, while five-year-old children are able to imagine situations in which basic emotions would be felt, the ability to describe situations in which social emotions might be experienced does not appear until seven years of age.

Intuition in the context of decision-making is defined as a "non-sequential information-processing mode." It is distinct from insight and can be contrasted with the deliberative style of decision-making. Intuition can influence judgment through either emotion or cognition, and there has been some suggestion that it may be a means of bridging the two. Individuals use intuition and more deliberative decision-making styles interchangeably, but there has been some evidence that people tend to gravitate to one or the other style more naturally. People in a good mood gravitate toward intuitive styles, while people in a bad mood tend to become more deliberative. The specific ways in which intuition actually influences decisions remain poorly understood.

Risk aversion is a preference for a sure outcome over a gamble with higher or equal expected value. Conversely, rejection of a sure thing in favor of a gamble of lower or equal expected value is known as risk-seeking behavior.

The neurocircuitry that underlies executive function processes and emotional and motivational processes are known to be distinct in the brain. However, there are brain regions that show overlap in function between the two cognitive systems. Brain regions that exist in both systems are interesting mainly for studies on how one system affects the other. Examples of such cross-modal functions are emotional regulation strategies such as emotional suppression and emotional reappraisal, the effect of mood on cognitive tasks, and the effect of emotional stimulation of cognitive tasks.

Behavioral game theory seeks to examine how people's strategic decision-making behavior is shaped by social preferences, social utility and other psychological factors. Behavioral game theory analyzes interactive strategic decisions and behavior using the methods of game theory, experimental economics, and experimental psychology. Experiments include testing deviations from typical simplifications of economic theory such as the independence axiom and neglect of altruism, fairness, and framing effects. As a research program, the subject is a development of the last three decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antoine Bechara</span> American neuroscientist

Antoine Bechara is an American neuroscientist, academic and researcher. He is currently a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Southern California.

References

  1. ↑ Kant, F. (1991). Remarks on the observations on the feeling of the beautiful and sublime. (J.T. Goldthwait, Trans.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Original work published 1764).
  2. ↑ Livet, P. (2010). Rational choice, neuroeconomy and mixed emotions. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society B, 265, 259-269.
  3. ↑ Barnes, A. and P. Thagard. 1996. Emotional decisions. Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society pp. 426–429.
  4. ↑ Lowenstein, G., & Lerner, J.S. (2003). The role of affect in decision making. In R. Davidson, K. Scherer, & H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective science, pp. 619-642. New York: Oxford University Press.
  5. ↑ Zeelenberg, M., van Dijk, W.W., & Manstead, A.S.R. (1998). Reconsidering the relation between regret and responsibility. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 74(3), 254-272.
  6. ↑ Mellers, B.A., & McGraw, A.P. (2001). Anticipated emotions as guides to choice. Current directions in psychological science, 10(6). 210-214.
  7. ↑ Han, S., & Lerner, J.S. (2009). Decision making. In D. Sander and K.R. Scherer (Eds.), Oxford companion to emotion and the affective sciences, pp. 111-113. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  8. ↑ Keltner, D., & Lerner, J.S. (2010). Emotion. In S.T. Fiske, D.T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology, pp. 317-352.
  9. ↑ Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes' Error: emotion, reason, and the human brain . New York: Grosset/Putnam.
  10. ↑ Damasio, A.R., Tranel, D. & Damasio, H. (1991). "Somatic markers and the guidance of behaviour: theory and preliminary testing" (pp. 217–229). In H.S. Levin, H.M. Eisenberg & A.L. Benton (Eds.). Frontal lobe function and dysfunction. New York: Oxford University Press
  11. 1 2 Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain . New York: Grosset/Putnam. ISBN   978-0-399-13894-2.
  12. ↑ Damasio, A. (1991). Somatic Markers and the Guidance of Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 217–299.
  13. ↑ Dunn, B. D. Dalgleish, T. & Lawrence, A. D., 2006. The somatic marker hypothesis: A critical evaluation. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 30, pp. 239–271.
  14. ↑ Pfister, H.R., & Böhm, G. (2008). The multiplicity of emotions: A framework of emotional functions in decision making. Judgment and decision making, 3(1), 5-17.
  15. ↑ Isen, A. M. & Patrick, R., 1983.The effect of positive feelings on risk taking: When the chips are down. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 31 (2), pp. 194–202.
  16. ↑ Raghunathan, R. & Tuan Pham, M., 1999. All negative moods are not equal: Motivational influences of anxiety and sadness on decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79 (1), 56–77.
  17. ↑ Isen, A. M. & Shalker, T. E., 1982. The effect of feeling state on evaluation of positive, neutral, and negative stimuli: When you “accentuate the positive,” do you “eliminate the negative”? Social Psychology Quarterly, 45 (1), 58–63.
  18. 1 2 Bower, G. H., 1981. Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36 (2), pp. 129–148.
  19. ↑ Sayegh, L. Anthony, W. P. & Perrewé, P. L., 2004. Managerial decision-making under crisis: The role of emotion in an intuitive decision process. Human Resource Management Review, 14 (2), 179–199.
  20. ↑ Luce, M.F. (1998). Choosing to avoid: Coping with negatively emotion-laden consumer decisions. Journal of consumer research, 24(4) 409-433.
  21. ↑ Leith, K.F., & Baumeister, R.F. (1996). Why do bad moods increase self-defeating behavior? Emotion, risk taking, and self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(6), 1250-1267.
  22. ↑ Lerner, Jennifer; Keltner (2000). "Beyond Valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgement and choice". Cognition and Emotion. 14 (4): 473–493. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.318.6023 . doi:10.1080/026999300402763.
  23. ↑ Lerner, J.S., Small, D.A., & Loewenstein, G. (2004). Heart strings and purse strings: carry-over effects of emotions on economic decisions. Psychological science, 15(5), 337-341.
  24. ↑ Bechara, A.R., Damasio, H., Damasio, A., & Lee, G.P. (1999). Different contributions of the human amygdala ventromedial prefrontal cortex to decision-making. The journal of neuroscience, 19(13), 5473-5481.
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