Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decisionmaking?

Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decisionmaking? PDF

Author: Kathleen D. Vohs

Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation

Published: 2007-11-26

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 1610445430

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Philosophers have long tussled over whether moral judgments are the products of logical reasoning or simply emotional reactions. From Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility to the debates of modern psychologists, the question of whether feeling or sober rationality is the better guide to decision making has been a source of controversy. In Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decision Making? Kathleen Vohs, Roy Baumeister, and George Loewenstein lead a group of prominent psychologists and economists in exploring the empirical evidence on how emotions shape judgments and choices. Researchers on emotion and cognition have staked out many extreme positions: viewing emotions as either the driving force behind cognition or its side effect, either an impediment to sound judgment or a guide to wise decisions. The contributors to Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decision Making? provide a richer perspective, exploring the circumstances that shape whether emotions play a harmful or helpful role in decisions. Roy Baumeister, C. Nathan DeWall, and Liqing Zhang show that while an individual's current emotional state can lead to hasty decisions and self-destructive behavior, anticipating future emotional outcomes can be a helpful guide to making sensible decisions. Eduardo Andrade and Joel Cohen find that a positive mood can negatively affect people's willingness to act altruistically. Happy people, when made aware of risks associated with altruistic acts, become wary of jeopardizing their own well-being. Benoît Monin, David Pizarro, and Jennifer Beer find that whether emotion or reason matters more in moral evaluation depends on the specific issue in question. Individual characteristics often mediate the effect of emotions on decisions. Catherine Rawn, Nicole Mead, Peter Kerkhof, and Kathleen Vohs find that whether an individual makes a decision based on emotion depends both on the type of decision in question and the individual's level of self-esteem. And Quinn Kennedy and Mara Mather show that the elderly are better able to regulate their emotions, having learned from experience to anticipate the emotional consequences of their behavior. Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decision Making? represents a significant advance toward a comprehensive theory of emotions and cognition that accounts for the nuances of the mental processes involved. This landmark book will be a stimulus to scholarly debates as well as an informative guide to everyday decisions.

Do Emotions Help Or Hurt Decisionmaking?

Do Emotions Help Or Hurt Decisionmaking? PDF

Author: Kathleen D. Vohs

Publisher:

Published: 2007-11-26

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Philosophers have long tussled over whether moral judgments are the products of logical reasoning or simply emotional reactions. From Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility to the debates of modern psychologists, the question of whether feeling or sober rationality is the better guide to decision making has been a source of controversy. In Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decision Making? Kathleen Vohs, Roy Baumeister, and George Loewenstein lead a group of prominent psychologists and economists in exploring the empirical evidence on how emotions shape judgments and choices. Researchers on emotion and cognition have staked out many extreme positions: viewing emotions as either the driving force behind cognition or its side effect, either an impediment to sound judgment or a guide to wise decisions. The contributors to Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decision Making? provide a richer perspective, exploring the circumstances that shape whether emotions play a harmful or helpful role in decisions. Roy Baumeister, C. Nathan DeWall, and Liqing Zhang show that while an individual's current emotional state can lead to hasty decisions and self-destructive behavior, anticipating future emotional outcomes can be a helpful guide to making sensible decisions. Eduardo Andrade and Joel Cohen find that a positive mood can negatively affect people's willingness to act altruistically. Happy people, when made aware of risks associated with altruistic acts, become wary of jeopardizing their own well-being. Benoît Monin, David Pizarro, and Jennifer Beer find that whether emotion or reason matters more in moral evaluation depends on the specific issue in question. Individual characteristics often mediate the effect of emotions on decisions. Catherine Rawn, Nicole Mead, Peter Kerkhof, and Kathleen Vohs find that whether an individual makes a decision based on emotion depends both on the type of decision in question and the individual's level of self-esteem. And Quinn Kennedy and Mara Mather show that the elderly are better able to regulate their emotions, having learned from experience to anticipate the emotional consequences of their behavior. Do Emotions Help or Hurt Decision Making? represents a significant advance toward a comprehensive theory of emotions and cognition that accounts for the nuances of the mental processes involved. This landmark book will be a stimulus to scholarly debates as well as an informative guide to everyday decisions.

Descartes' Error

Descartes' Error PDF

Author: Antonio Damasio

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2005-09-27

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 014303622X

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Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.

Neuroscience of Decision Making

Neuroscience of Decision Making PDF

Author: Oshin Vartanian

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2011-04-14

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 113685987X

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The intersection between the fields of behavioral decision research and neuroscience has proved to be fertile ground for interdisciplinary research. Whereas the former is rich in formalized models of choice, the latter is rife with techniques for testing behavioral models at the brain level. As a result, there has been the rapid emergence of progressively more sophisticated biological models of choice, geared toward the development of ever more complete mechanistic models of behavior. This volume provides a coherent framework for distilling some of the key themes that have emerged as a function of this research program, and highlights what we have learned about judgment and decision making as a result. Although topics that are theoretically relevant to judgment and decision making researchers are addressed, the book also ventures somewhat beyond the traditional boundaries of this area to tackle themes that would of interest to a greater community of scholars. Neuroscience of Decision Making provides contemporary and essential reading for researchers and students of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and economics.

Emotional

Emotional PDF

Author: Leonard Mlodinow

Publisher: Pantheon

Published: 2022-01-11

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1524747599

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We’ve all been told that thinking rationally is the key to success. But at the cutting edge of science, researchers are discovering that feeling is every bit as important as thinking. You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how you should invest, and not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of Subliminal, tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking. How can you connect better with others? How can you make sense of your frustration, fear, and anxiety? What can you do to live a happier life? The answers lie in understanding your emotions. Journeying from the labs of pioneering scientists to real-world scenarios that have flirted with disaster, Mlodinow shows us how our emotions can help, why they sometimes hurt, and what we can learn in both instances. Using deep insights into our evolution and biology, Mlodinow gives us the tools to understand our emotions better and to maximize their benefits. Told with his characteristic clarity and fascinating stories, Emotional explores the new science of feelings and offers us an essential guide to making the most of one of nature’s greatest gifts.

Behavioral Economics and Public Health

Behavioral Economics and Public Health PDF

Author: Christina A. Roberto

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 019939833X

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Behavioral economics has potential to offer novel solutions to some of today's most pressing public health problems: How do we persuade people to eat healthy and lose weight? How can health professionals communicate health risks in a way that is heeded? How can food labeling be modified to inform healthy food choices? Behavioral Economics and Public Health is the first book to apply the groundbreaking insights of behavioral economics to the persisting problems of health behaviors and behavior change. In addition to providing a primer on the behavioral economics principles that are most relevant to public health, this book offers details on how these principles can be employed to mitigating the world's greatest health threats, including obesity, smoking, risky sexual behavior, and excessive drinking. With contributions from an international team of scholars from psychology, economics, marketing, public health, and medicine, this book is a trailblazing new approach to the most difficult and important problems of our time.

Time and Decision

Time and Decision PDF

Author: George Loewenstein

Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation

Published: 2003-02-27

Total Pages: 584

ISBN-13: 1610443667

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How do people decide whether to sacrifice now for a future reward or to enjoy themselves in the present? Do the future gains of putting money in a pension fund outweigh going to Hawaii for New Year's Eve? Why does a person's self-discipline one day often give way to impulsive behavior the next? Time and Decision takes up these questions with a comprehensive collection of new research on intertemporal choice, examining how people face the problem of deciding over time. Economists approach intertemporal choice by means of a model in which people discount the value of future events at a constant rate. A vacation two years from now is worth less to most people than a vacation next week. Psychologists, on the other hand, have focused on the cognitive and emotional underpinnings of intertemporal choice. Time and Decision draws from both disciplinary approaches to provide a comprehensive picture of the various layers of choice involved. Shane Frederick, George Loewenstein, and Ted O'Donoghue introduce the volume with an overview of the research on time discounting and focus on how people actually discount the future compared to the standard economic model. Alex Kacelnik discusses the crucial role that the ability to delay gratification must have played in evolution. Walter Mischel and colleagues review classic research showing that four year olds who are able to delay gratification subsequently grow up to perform better in college than their counterparts who chose instant gratification. The book also delves into the neurobiology of patience, examining the brain structures involved in the ability to withstand an impulse. Turning to the issue of self-control, Klaus Wertenbroch examines the relationship between consumption and available resources, showing, for example, how a high credit limit can lead people to overspend. Ted O'Donoghue and Matthew Rabin show how people's awareness of their self-control problems affects their decision-making. The final section of the book examines intertemporal choice with regard to health, drug addiction, dieting, marketing, savings, and public policy. All of us make important decisions every day-many of which profoundly affect the quality of our lives. Time and Decision provides a fascinating look at the complex factors involved in how and why we make our choices, so many of them short-sighted, and helps us understand more precisely this crucial human frailty.

Handbook of Affective Sciences

Handbook of Affective Sciences PDF

Author: Richard J Davidson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-05-21

Total Pages: 1218

ISBN-13: 0195377001

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One hundred stereotype maps glazed with the most exquisite human prejudice, especially collected for you by Yanko Tsvetkov, author of the viral Mapping Stereotypes project. Satire and cartography rarely come in a single package but in the Atlas of Prejudice they successfully blend in a work of art that is both funny and thought-provoking. The book is based on Mapping Stereotypes, Yanko Tsvetkov's critically acclaimed project that became a viral Internet sensation in 2009. A reliable weapon against bigots of all kinds, it serves as an inexhaustible source of much needed argumentation and-occasionally-as a nice slab of paper that can be used to smack them across the face whenever reasoning becomes utterly impossible. The Complete Collection version of the Atlas contains all maps from the previously published two volumes and adds twenty five new ones, wrapping the best-selling series in a single extended edition.

Emotions, Ethics and Decision-Making

Emotions, Ethics and Decision-Making PDF

Author: Wilfred J. Zerbe

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2008-06-16

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1846639417

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The rapidly growing recognition of the importance of emotion in understanding all aspects of organizational life is facilitating the development of focused areas of scholarship. This volume includes articles, which represent a selection of the papers presented at the sixth International Conference on Emotions and Organizational Life.

Choice Over Time

Choice Over Time PDF

Author: George Loewenstein

Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation

Published: 1992-10-27

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1610443659

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Many of our most urgent national problems suggest a widespread lack of concern for the future. Alarming economic conditions, such as low national savings rates, declining corporate investment in long-term capital projects, and ballooning private and public debt are matched by such social ills as diminished educational achievement, environmental degradation, and high rates of infant mortality, crime, and teenage pregnancy. At the heart of all these troubles lies an important behavioral phenomenon: in the role of consumer, manager, voter, student, or parent, many Americans choose inferior but immediate rewards over greater long-term benefits. Choice Over Time offers a rich sampling of original research on intertemporal choice—how and why people decide between immediate and delayed consequences—from a broad range of theoretical and methodological perspectives in philosophy, political science, psychology, and economics. George Loewenstein, Jon Elster, and their distinguished colleagues review existing theories and forge new approaches to understanding significant questions: Why do people seem to "discount" future benefits? Do individuals use the same decision-making strategy in all aspects of their lives? What part is played by situational factors such as the certainty of delayed consequences? How are decisions affected by personal factors such as willpower and taste? In addressing these issues, the contributors to Choice Over Time address many social, economic, psychological, and personal time problems. Their work demonstrates the predictive power of short-term preferences in behavior as varied as addiction and phobia, the effect of prices on consumption, and the dramatic rise in debt and decline in savings. Choice Over Time provides an essential source for the most recent research and theory on intertemporal choice, offering new models for time preference patterns—and their aberrations—and presenting a diversity of potential solutions to the problem of "temporal myopia."