Affect Heuristic
Updated 2026-08-06
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Described by Paul Slovic and colleagues, the affect heuristic holds that people consult their current feelings about an option and read risk and benefit off that feeling. If the feeling is positive, benefits appear larger and risks smaller; if negative, the reverse. The judgment is fast and often useful, but it produces inverse relationships between perceived risk and perceived benefit that do not exist in the underlying evidence.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Name the feeling: identify your emotional reaction before you start evaluating the evidence. - Separate the two: assess risk and benefit independently rather than reading both off one feeling. - Assign a critic: put someone without your enthusiasm on the case to test the numbers.
Anchor fast decisions
Emotional reactions are generated quickly and serve as a summary signal that the mind uses to simplify judgment. Because one feeling supplies both the risk and the benefit estimate, the two become inversely related in perception regardless of their actual relationship. Deliberate analysis separates them, but only if it is triggered before the feeling settles the conclusion.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_heuristicverified
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