Choice processing in emotionally difficult decisions.
Choice conflicts between one's important values may cause negative emotion. This article extends the standard effort-accuracy approach to explaining task influences on decision processing by arguing that coping goals will interact with effort minimization and accuracy maximization goals for negatively emotion-laden decision tasks. These coping goals may involve both a desire to process in a thorough, accurate manner and a desire to avoid particularly distressing aspects of processing. On the basis of this extended framework, the authors hypothesized and found in 3 experiments that decision processing under increasing negative emotion both becomes more extensive and proceeds more by focusing on one attribute at a time. In particular, increased negative emotion leads to more attribute-based processing at the beginning of the decision process. The results are inconsistent with views that negative emotion acts only as an incentive or only as a source of decision complexity.
Duke Scholars
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Motivation
- Male
- Humans
- Female
- Experimental Psychology
- Emotions
- Decision Making
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Choice Behavior
- Awareness
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Motivation
- Male
- Humans
- Female
- Experimental Psychology
- Emotions
- Decision Making
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Choice Behavior
- Awareness