Imagery, Affect, and Decision Making

Traditionally, the principal focus of research on judgment and decision making has been largely cognitive and rationalistic. More recently, however, decision-making researchers have acknowledged the role of noncognitive factors and have offered limited accounts of how affect and imagery influence processes associated with judgment and choice. The present paper extends this direction by offering evidence from three studies conducted in widely diverse contexts that support the view that the concepts of mental imagery and affect can provide a powerful framework for predicting both intended and actual behavior from relatively simple image-elicitation techniques. The implications of this evidence are discussed in terms of their significance for imagery and affect to act as organizing principles in theories of judgment and decision making.