The Affect Heuristic and Decision Making

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsHow It WorksExampleHow It Affects YouHow to Keep Feelings Out of Decisions

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

How It Works

Example

How It Affects You

How to Keep Feelings Out of Decisions

Close

At a GlanceThe affect heuristic influences your decisions. It’s when your brain takes a “mental shortcut” and your feelings play an important role in the choices you make.

At a Glance

The affect heuristic influences your decisions. It’s when your brain takes a “mental shortcut” and your feelings play an important role in the choices you make.

A psychological term for an emotional response is called “affect."

Your emotions influence all your choices, big and small.For example, you might be more likely to take risks or try new things when you are happy and confident, and less likely to when you’re feeling down and insecure. If you’ve ever gone with your “gut feeling” when facing a difficult decision, then you’ve relied on the affect heuristic.

After all, you might already know that you are more likely to take risks or try new things when you are happy but less likely to go out on a limb when you’re feeling glum. If you’ve ever gone with your “gut feeling” when faced with a difficult decision, you are probably relying on the affect heuristic.

In psychology, aheuristicis a mental shortcut that allows people to make decisions quickly and efficiently. In this case, it is the way you feel (your affect) toward a particular stimulus that influences the decisions you make.

Let’s talk more about how the affectheuristicwould play out in your daily life, including some examples of how it helps you make decisions.

Press Play for Advice On Making Decisions

Affect Heuristic: How It Works

Your feelings about the relative “goodness” or “badness” of a particular person, object, or activity influence the choices that you make about them.

So, just how much do youremotionsinfluence your decision-making and how does this affect your life? Here’s what research has shown:

Affect Heuristic: Example

Here’s an example of the affect heuristic in action. Imagine two kids playing in a local park: Miguel and Jenny.

Miguel has spent a lot of time having fun on the swings at a neighbor’s house, so he has nothing but positive feelings when he sees the swing set at the park. He immediately decides that the swings will be agoodchoice (e.g., high benefit, low risk) and eagerly runs over to play on them.

Jenny, however, recently had a negative experience while playing on the swings at a friend’s house—she fell off and got hurt. So, when she sees the swings at the park, she draws on her recent not-so-fun-and-kinda-painful memory and decides that the swings are abadchoice (e.g., low benefit, high risk).

How the Affect Heuristic Affects Your Life

The affect heuristic as prone and cons. While these mental shortcuts let us make quick and often reasonably accurate choices, they can also lead to poordecision-making.

Consider how advertising can make activities like smoking or eating tasty but not very nutritious food seem like positive choices. These ads can influence the emotions of consumers and lead them to make decisions that do not support (and can even harm) their health.

A 1978 study played an important role in our understanding of the affect heuristic. The researchers found that judgments of benefits and risks were negativelycorrelated—that means the greater the perceived benefit, the lower the perceived risk.On the other hand, the riskier a behavior seemed, the less the perceived benefits of it were.

Behaviors such as drinking alcohol and smoking were viewed as high-risk and low-benefit, while things like antibiotics and vaccines were seen as high-benefit and low-risk.

Researchers have also found that emotions caninfluence the judgmentspeople make about the data they are given.In an older studyfrom 2009, clinicians were shown recidivism rates that were presented as either probabilities (such as 30%) or frequencies (such as 30 out of 100).

The clinicians rated mental health patients as presenting with a higher risk when the numbers were shown as frequencies instead of probabilities. Why? The researchers thought presenting the data as frequencies led the clinicians to make more extreme judgments, as it created a mental image of the patient lapsing back into their old behaviors.

How to Keep Your Emotions Out of Decisions

The affect heuristic can have a powerful influence on our decisions. So, how can you make sure that your emotions aren’t leading you to make choices that won’t benefit you?

Usually, you probably talk to yourself in the first person—that is, saying “I am,” “I want,” and “I need.” This perspective puts you right smack in the middle of everything you’re feeling, sensing, and experiencing in the moment—a busy spot that can easily be overwhelming.

Instead, think about becoming a narrator telling the reader about what’s happening to a character but isn’t actually part of the story. The narrator is in a useful place: they can see and hear what’s going on, and they know how a character is feeling and thinking, but they do not have to feel those feelings or think those thoughts themselves. The narrator is detached from emotions and can look at what’s happening objectively.

Here’s something to try: The next time you need to make a decision in an emotional moment, pause and silently “talk” to yourself in the third person. You can take on the role of the narrator to describe what’s happening objectively. You may even give your “character” some advice on how to handle the situation.

For example, imagine you’re about to tell yourself “I can’t do this, I’m going to mess up.”

Instead, go into narration mode and say, “[Your name], was nervous but had spent the whole week leading up to this moment preparing, so they had the tools and know-how to get the job done.”

Or, for a bit of a confidence boost, you could try, “[Your name], it’s understandable that you’d be nervous because you care about doing a good job. But don’t let your nerves take over—you’ve worked hard and you’re ready. Take a deep breath and do the best you can.”

You may find that using narrative self-talk helps you stay calm, collected, and level-headed, and can even prevent you from making a decision in the moment that you’d regret later.

How the Availability Heuristic Affects Decision-Making

9 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.The Decision Lab.Heuristics explained.Lerner JS, Li Y, Valdesolo P, Kassam KS.Emotion and decision making.Annu Rev Psychol. 2015;66:799–823. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043Mohamad Hjeij, Arnis Vilks.A brief history of heuristics: how did research on heuristics evolve?.Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 2023;10(1). doi:10.1057/s41599-023-01542-zSkagerlund K, Mattias Forsblad, Slovic P, Västfjäll D.The affect heuristic and risk perception – stability across elicitation methods and individual cognitive abilities.Frontiers in Psychology. 2020;11. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00970Brush JE.Decision-making shortcuts: The good and the bad.Fox-Glassman KT, Weber EU.What makes risk acceptable? Revisiting the 1978 psychological dimensions of perceptions of technological risks.J Math Psychol. 2016;75:157-169. doi:10.1016/j.jmp.2016.05.003Reyna VF, Nelson WL, Han PK, Dieckmann NF.How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making.Psychol Bull.2009;135(6):943–973. doi:10.1037/a0017327Moser JS, Dougherty A, Mattson WI, et al.Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI.Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):4519. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04047-3Anna‐Lena Lumma, Weger U.Looking from within: Comparing first-person approaches to studying experience.Current Psychology. 2021;42(12):10437-10453. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02277-3Additional ReadingReisberg, D. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2013.

9 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.The Decision Lab.Heuristics explained.Lerner JS, Li Y, Valdesolo P, Kassam KS.Emotion and decision making.Annu Rev Psychol. 2015;66:799–823. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043Mohamad Hjeij, Arnis Vilks.A brief history of heuristics: how did research on heuristics evolve?.Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 2023;10(1). doi:10.1057/s41599-023-01542-zSkagerlund K, Mattias Forsblad, Slovic P, Västfjäll D.The affect heuristic and risk perception – stability across elicitation methods and individual cognitive abilities.Frontiers in Psychology. 2020;11. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00970Brush JE.Decision-making shortcuts: The good and the bad.Fox-Glassman KT, Weber EU.What makes risk acceptable? Revisiting the 1978 psychological dimensions of perceptions of technological risks.J Math Psychol. 2016;75:157-169. doi:10.1016/j.jmp.2016.05.003Reyna VF, Nelson WL, Han PK, Dieckmann NF.How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making.Psychol Bull.2009;135(6):943–973. doi:10.1037/a0017327Moser JS, Dougherty A, Mattson WI, et al.Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI.Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):4519. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04047-3Anna‐Lena Lumma, Weger U.Looking from within: Comparing first-person approaches to studying experience.Current Psychology. 2021;42(12):10437-10453. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02277-3Additional ReadingReisberg, D. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2013.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

The Decision Lab.Heuristics explained.Lerner JS, Li Y, Valdesolo P, Kassam KS.Emotion and decision making.Annu Rev Psychol. 2015;66:799–823. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043Mohamad Hjeij, Arnis Vilks.A brief history of heuristics: how did research on heuristics evolve?.Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 2023;10(1). doi:10.1057/s41599-023-01542-zSkagerlund K, Mattias Forsblad, Slovic P, Västfjäll D.The affect heuristic and risk perception – stability across elicitation methods and individual cognitive abilities.Frontiers in Psychology. 2020;11. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00970Brush JE.Decision-making shortcuts: The good and the bad.Fox-Glassman KT, Weber EU.What makes risk acceptable? Revisiting the 1978 psychological dimensions of perceptions of technological risks.J Math Psychol. 2016;75:157-169. doi:10.1016/j.jmp.2016.05.003Reyna VF, Nelson WL, Han PK, Dieckmann NF.How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making.Psychol Bull.2009;135(6):943–973. doi:10.1037/a0017327Moser JS, Dougherty A, Mattson WI, et al.Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI.Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):4519. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04047-3Anna‐Lena Lumma, Weger U.Looking from within: Comparing first-person approaches to studying experience.Current Psychology. 2021;42(12):10437-10453. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02277-3

The Decision Lab.Heuristics explained.

Lerner JS, Li Y, Valdesolo P, Kassam KS.Emotion and decision making.Annu Rev Psychol. 2015;66:799–823. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043

Mohamad Hjeij, Arnis Vilks.A brief history of heuristics: how did research on heuristics evolve?.Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 2023;10(1). doi:10.1057/s41599-023-01542-z

Skagerlund K, Mattias Forsblad, Slovic P, Västfjäll D.The affect heuristic and risk perception – stability across elicitation methods and individual cognitive abilities.Frontiers in Psychology. 2020;11. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00970

Brush JE.Decision-making shortcuts: The good and the bad.

Fox-Glassman KT, Weber EU.What makes risk acceptable? Revisiting the 1978 psychological dimensions of perceptions of technological risks.J Math Psychol. 2016;75:157-169. doi:10.1016/j.jmp.2016.05.003

Reyna VF, Nelson WL, Han PK, Dieckmann NF.How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making.Psychol Bull.2009;135(6):943–973. doi:10.1037/a0017327

Moser JS, Dougherty A, Mattson WI, et al.Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI.Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):4519. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04047-3

Anna‐Lena Lumma, Weger U.Looking from within: Comparing first-person approaches to studying experience.Current Psychology. 2021;42(12):10437-10453. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02277-3

Reisberg, D. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2013.

Meet Our Review Board

Share Feedback

Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

What is your feedback?