Judgment and Decision Making: The Dance of Affect and Reason

In this chapter, we propose a theoretical framework for understanding some of the ways that affect can influence judgment and decision making. Affect and emotion have been topics of study for centuries and, as a result, the literature is vast. One recent search found more than 5,000 citations to this topic over the previous five years (Cacioppo & Gardner, 1999). In this chapter we will obviously address only small portions of this literature. We hope, however, that the chapter will be viewed as an invitation for further exploration of the impact of affect on decisions. The theory we will introduce demonstrates the importance of affect in guiding evaluations and choices. We offer a parsimonious explanation for many patterns of results revealed in judgment and decision-making research and support the theory with some of our own data. Draft January 10, 2002 C:\Authors_Diana\Melissa\JDM Dance.doc2/18/03 iii