Choice processing in emotionally difficult decisions.

Full Abstract

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.

Author information

Author/s: Luce, M F (MF); Bettman, J R (JR); Payne, J W (JW);

Affiliation: Marketing Department, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104-6371, USA. maryfran(-atsign-)marketing.wharton.upenn.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn), published in UNITED STATES. (Language: eng)

Reference: 1997-Mar; vol 23 (issue 2) : pp 384-405

Dates: Created 1997/04/29; Completed 1997/04/29; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 9080010, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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