Affect & Emotion
Building upon work in cognitive science, social psychology, and neuroscience, our researchers develop, test, and apply affect-based theories of judgment and decision making.
Emotion can interfere with decision making. However, affective responses can also prove very useful. Many times our first indication that there is a problem that requires attention is that “something doesn’t feel right.” Affect and emotion have been actively studied in psychology for more than a century. However, until recently the roles of affective processes in judgment and decision making were largely unexplored. Our research builds upon recent work in cognitive science, social psychology, and cognitive neuroscience to develop and test affect-based theories of judgment and decision making and to apply this understanding to problems in applied arenas.
Principal Investigators: Paul Slovic, Daniel Västfjäll, William Burns, Joseph Arvai