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emotion
Your feelings dictate your risk assessment before logic starts.
The affect heuristic is the process of using current emotions to make rapid decisions instead of evaluating complex data.
Research demonstrates that when people feel positive about an activity, they judge its risks as lower and its benefits as higher, regardless of actual statistical safety profiles.
You justify your decisions with logic after your feelings have already made the choice.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Slovic et al., 2007
- What the check found
- The definition is accurate to standard psychological literature, specifically the work of Slovic et al., though the provided reference material does not contain the specific descriptive quote.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.