Emotions and Decisions: Beyond Conceptual Vagueness and the Rationality Muddle

Perspectives on Psychological Science : a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science
Kirsten G Volz, Ralph Hertwig

Abstract

For centuries, decision scholars paid little attention to emotions: Decisions were modeled in normative and descriptive frameworks with little regard for affective processes. Recently, however, an "emotions revolution" has taken place, particularly in the neuroscientific study of decision making, putting emotional processes on an equal footing with cognitive ones. Yet disappointingly little theoretical progress has been made. The concepts and processes discussed often remain vague, and conclusions about the implications of emotions for rationality are contradictory and muddled. We discuss three complementary ways to move the neuroscientific study of emotion and decision making from agenda setting to theory building. The first is to use reverse inference as a hypothesis-discovery rather than a hypothesis-testing tool, unless its utility can be systematically quantified (e.g., through meta-analysis). The second is to capitalize on the conceptual inventory advanced by the behavioral science of emotions, testing those concepts and unveiling the underlying processes. The third is to model the interplay between emotions and decisions, harnessing existing cognitive frameworks of decision making and mapping emotions onto the postulated...Continue Reading

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Citations

Oct 20, 2017·AJOB Empirical Bioethics·Marlyse F HawardBaruch Fischhoff
Aug 14, 2018·Cognition & Emotion·Agnes Moors, Maja Fischer
Nov 11, 2017·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Mirta Galesic
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May 21, 2019·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Ian D Roberts, Cendri A Hutcherson
Jul 19, 2019··Paul ThomasNick Craswell

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