Regulating the impact of emotions to improve decisions
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2013 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Emotions influence decisions, often without our awareness. They affect how information is processed, whether a risk is perceived, the ability to regulate decisions and behavior, and the desire to act on a decision. Through these processes emotions impact almost every choice made in daily life. New research suggests that people have the ability to recognize and regulate the impact of emotions on their decisions, improving their choices, and that certain skills and knowledge are required in order to do so. This chapter will review recent evidence about the situations that encourage people to regulate the impact of emotions and the strategies that people employ to reduce emotional biases in decisions. We will also review evidence about the individual qualities that promote regulation. These findings have implications for helping people 1) make unbiased judgments of risk involved in future activities such as gambles and health choices, 2) avoid the use of stereotypes when evaluating new people and situations, and 3) improve their ability to make decisions by reducing tendencies to avoid the decision for fear of regretting the outcome.
