Affect Heuristic - decisions by emotion
Summary
- Emotions affect our decisions
Details
- When we are happy we take more risks
- We decide complex decisions based on our feelings rather than our thoughts
- We think: 'What do i feel about this?' instead of 'What do i think about this'
- On the positive side, this allows us to make decisions quickly and efficiently, since Thinking uses energy
References
- The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
- verywell website
- The Great Mental Models Volume 2 - Physics, Chemistry and Biology
In Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman also writes of the affect heuristic “in which people make judgments and decisions by consulting their emotions: Do I like it? Do I hate it? How strongly do I feel about it?” Kahneman explains that “the affect heuristic is an instance of substitution, in which the answer to an easy question (How do I feel about it?) serves as an answer to a much harder question (What do I think about it?).”3 Answering the easier question is not necessarily a bad thing; we substitute our emotional response for a thinking response because we have to. We absolutely must react, and trust our reactions, in order to process the many interactions we have in a day. Our brain goes to the emotional reaction because it takes less energy to figure out how we feel about something than it takes to do the work to have an informed perspective. Often this is useful, as it lets us put minimal effort into decisions of little consequence, such as buying laundry detergent based on your love of its smell. Sometimes, however, we would increase our skills and knowledge if we put the effort into answering the harder question of what we think about something and not relying on the emotional shortcut.
Heuristics exist because they are way more efficient—efficient in terms of energy use, not necessarily efficient in getting the most useful answer. As Kahneman explains, “A general ‘law of least effort’ applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature.”4