Positive and Negative Emotions
Research done by Isen and Patrick put forth the theory of “mood maintenance” which states that happy decision-makers are reluctant to gamble. In other words, happy people decide against gambling, since they would not want to undermine the happy feeling.
Alternately, the influence of negative feelings at the time of decision-making was studied by Raghunathan and Tuan Pham (1999). They conducted three experiments in gambling decisions and job selection decisions, where unhappy subjects were found to prefer high-risk/high-reward options unlike anxious subjects who preferred low-risk/low-reward options. They stated that “anxiety and sadness convey distinct types of information to the decision-maker and prime different goals.” It was found that “while anxiety primes an implicit goal of uncertainty reduction, sadness primes an implicit goal of reward replacement”. Thus emotions cannot simply be classified as positive or negative as we need to consider the consequences of the emotions in ultimate decision-making. Emotions rule our decision making process.
Read more about this topic: Emotions In Decision-making
Famous quotes containing the words positive, negative and/or emotions:
“Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The working woman may be quick to see any problems with children as her fault because she isn’t as available to them. However, the fact that she is employed is rarely central to the conflict. And overall, studies show, being employed doesn’t have negative effects on children; carefully done research consistently makes this clear.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“I have been amazed by the Anglo-Saxon’s lack of curiosity about the internal lives and emotions of the Negroes, and for that matter, any non-Anglo-Saxon peoples within our borders, above the class of unskilled labor.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)