The affect heuristic

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Abstract

This paper introduces a theoretical framework that describes the importance of affect in guiding judgments and decisions. As used here, “affect” means the specific quality of “goodness” or “badness” (i) experienced as a feeling state (with or without consciousness) and (ii) demarcating a positive or negative quality of a stimulus. Affective responses occur rapidly and automatically—note how quickly you sense the feelings associated with the stimulus word “treasure” or the word “hate”. We argue that reliance on such feelings can be characterized as “the affect heuristic”. In this paper we trace the development of the affect heuristic across a variety of research paths followed by ourselves and many others. We also discuss some of the important practical implications resulting from ways that this heuristic impacts our daily lives.

Section snippets

Background

Although affect has long played a key role in many behavioral theories, it has rarely been recognized as an important component of human judgment and decision making. Perhaps befitting its rationalistic origins, the main focus of descriptive decision research has been cognitive, rather than affective. When principles of utility maximization appeared to be descriptively inadequate, Simon (1956) oriented the field toward problem solving and information-processing models based upon bounded

Manipulating preferences through controlled exposures

The fundamental nature and importance of affect has been demonstrated repeatedly in a remarkable series of studies by Robert Zajonc and his colleagues (see, e.g., Zajonc, 1968). The concept of stimulus exposure is central to all of these studies. The central finding is that, when objects are presented to an individual repeatedly, the “mere exposure” is capable of creating a positive attitude or preference for these objects.

In the typical study, stimuli such as nonsense phrases, or faces, or

The downside of affect

Throughout this paper we have made many claims for the affect heuristic, portraying it as the centerpiece of the experiential mode of thinking, the dominant mode of survival during the evolution of the human species. But, like other heuristics that provide efficient and generally adaptive responses but occasionally lead us astray, reliance on affect can also deceive us. Indeed, if it was always optimal to follow our affective and experiential instincts, there would have been no need for the

Conclusion

We hope that this rather selective and idiosyncratic tour through a mélange of experiments and conjectures has conveyed the sense of excitement we feel toward the affect heuristic. This heuristic appears at once both wondrous and frightening: wondrous in its speed, and subtlety, and sophistication, and its ability to “lubricate reason”; frightening in its dependency upon context and experience, allowing us to be led astray or manipulated—inadvertently or intentionally—silently and invisibly.

It

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    Reprinted from Gilovich, T., Griffin, D., Kahneman, D. (Eds.), 2002. Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment. Cambridge University Press, New York. pp. 397–420. © Cambridge University Press 2002. Reprinted with permission. Financial support for the writing of this paper was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant SES 9876587.

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