Risk as feelings

Virtually all current theories of choice under risk or uncertainty are cogn itive and consequentialist. They assume that people assess the desirability and likelihood of possible outcomes of choice alternatives and integrate t his information through some type of expectation-based calculus to arrive a t a decision. The authors propose an alternative theoretical perspective, t he risk-as-feelings hypothesis, that highlights the role of affect experien ced at the moment of decision making. Drawing on research from clinical, ph ysiological, and other subfields of psychology, they show that emotional re actions to risky situations often diverge from cognitive assessments of tho se risks. When such divergence occurs, emotional reactions often drive beha vior. The risk-as-feelings hypothesis is shown to explain a wide range of p henomena that have resisted interpretation in cognitive-consequentialist te rms.