Affect, Reason, and Mere Hunches

There is a growing respect for the wisdom of emotion and intuition that has emerged from recent research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. This paper reviews a segment of this research dealing with intuitive feelings, which my colleagues and I call affect. The processing of affect by the human brain is indeed sophisticated, contributing greatly to rationality. Nevertheless, our intuitions can sometimes lead us astray. Better understanding of affective intuition is necessary to enable us to maximize the benefits and minimize the errors of this remarkable system.