Cognitive Scaffold

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MENTAL MODEL · M0593

Affect Heuristic

Affect Heuristic
BehaviorHigh supportPsychology
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Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

People often make decisions not based on cost-benefit analysis, but based on their immediate emotional reactions (liking/disliking) to things. If you like something, you tend to underestimate its risks and overestimate its benefits.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

Intuition check: When you feel 'excited' about an investment project, beware! Your brain is automatically filtering out risk information.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Often used as a variant of 'affect heuristic', referring to making judgments by substituting emotional feelings for systematic analysis. The mechanism is that emotional markers quickly drive approach-avoidance, saving step-by-step reasoning.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

  • link
    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_heuristicZH · Explicit
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