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emotion
Your mood determines your assessment of objective risk.
The affect heuristic leads you to perceive risks as lower when you are in a positive state.
You do not calculate danger using only logic; you consult your emotional reaction to the topic. If the topic makes you feel good, your brain labels it as safe. If it makes you feel bad, it is labeled as dangerous, regardless of the data.
Your decision to avoid a risk is often just a response to your mood.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Slovic, 2004
- What the check found
- The claim accurately captures the core essence of the affect heuristic as established by Slovic et al., identifying the inverse relationship between liking a stimulus and perceiving its risk.
- 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.