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:
“The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“There is no reason why parents who work hard at a job to support a family, who nurture children during the hours at home, and who have searched for and selected the best [daycare] arrangement possible for their children need to feel anxious and guilty. It almost seems as if our culture wants parents to experience these negative feelings.”
—Gwen Morgan (20th century)
“The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no.”
—Lester Bangs (1948–1982)