{"id":2445,"date":"2024-07-01T15:37:42","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T15:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/?p=2445"},"modified":"2024-10-20T15:29:07","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T15:29:07","slug":"emotions-guide-behaviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/emotions-guide-behaviour\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotions Guide Behaviour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(image credit<\/a>: Monstera Productions via Pexels)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due warning: This page is heavy on consumer psychology. There are some applications, but it's mostly about our internal mental lives<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The best way to understand this is to start with an even bigger question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why do we have emotions at all?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Are they a strange accident of nature? A daily glitch in our minds? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We often talk like they are a problem: explaining our mistakes by saying “I got emotional” and “lost my head.” We imagine that someone with a lot of big feelings might be good at art maybe, but not science or other jobs that are highly rational. Emotions and rationality are often seen as getting in each other’s way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If a surgeon offered to remove your emotions#up would you accept? What if they offered to get rid of only your negative ones? We suspect you wouldn’t agree to this. But why not?<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. This is not medically possible. Emotions are processed across many parts of your brain<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
A lot of people intuit that if we were only able to have positive emotions then this would make us into some kind of dumb happy zombie. Is that fair? Are emotions like fire: something that keeps us pleasantly warm so long as it doesn’t flare out of control? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is an interesting data point:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Philosopher Paul Thagaard <\/span> analysed the biography that scientist James Watson wrote about his Nobel prize-winning work to decipher DNA’s double helix structure. Instead of the bloodless calculating rationality that you might expect this book was brimming with emotion. Watson and his partner Francis Crick were elated when things were going well, depressed when they hit dead-ends and flooded with optimism when they found potential solutions to tricky problems.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"Rainbow-hued
DNA’s double helix structure (iStock<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
So here we find a pair of scientists working at the peak of human capacity – not everyone wins a Nobel Prize – and yet the journey that took them there was run through with deep emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historical justice footnote: Did that Nobel prize skip a deserving recipient?<\/h5>
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Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize, along with Maurice Wilkins. Controversially the prize was not also awarded to Rosalind Franklin whose work played a key role in the discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"black
Rosaline Franklin (credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Not only did they use her mathematical models to help determine what the structure was, but a picture produced by the lab she was supervising was key to helping determine and show support for the structure.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"Photo
The famed “photo 51” showing part of the structure of DNA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
These things were shown to Watson and Crick without Franklin’s knowledge or consent, as she moved to a different university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Franklin was on track to solving DNA’s structure before Watson and Crick proposed their famous double helix solution. She was initially sceptical when Watson and Crick’s paper came out. She felt that not enough evidence had accumulated to accept that solution yet. While she had considered similar ideas before, Franklin adhered to a slower and more deliberative philosophy of science, one that relied less on elegant theoretical ideas and more on the eventual accumulation of evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Franklin went on to work on understanding an important virus, before dying tragically young of cancer, at only age 34. The work she started on that virus eventually received a Nobel prize for chemistry in 1984. She might not have received much recognition in her lifetime but clearly was a remarkable scientist.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Was this just two unusual scientists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason… Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.<\/p>\nAlbert Einstein (According to Quote Investigator<\/a>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
It seems fair to say that emotions are at least compatible with rationality. But can they be more? How would they be more? Would it really be a good idea to get rid of them#up? As we asked earlier: what is the purpose of emotions?<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. That answer is almost certainly 'no'. A loss of pleasure or interest in things (\"anhedonia\") is a component of depression, among other psychopathologies <\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
This page will discuss 2 key uses of emotions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Guiding our behaviour<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Supplying us with information<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    Emotions Guide behaviour<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    People are complicated so let’s start with a simpler emotional creature: cats#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
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    #down. Maybe cats only pretend to be simple so they can lull humans into a false sense of security. We asked our cat about this, but she pretended not to understand<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    Example: cat’s emotions & behaviours<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    When cats see something small that darts around like a mouse or bird, this can trigger excitement#up (even if it is really just a feather tied to a bit of string, or a laser pointer) which in turn can trigger a specific set of behaviours: They crouch low and still, making themselves hard to see, they creep forwards slowly, and then leap suddenly, grabbing the target with their paws.<\/p>\n\n\n
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    #down. Unless they don't feel like it, in which case they just give you bored side eye<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    They behave differently when they see something that could potentially hurt them (e.g., a dog, a strange human, a bigger cat, a loud vacuum cleaner). In these situations they feel fear, which triggers different behaviours: a stiff half-crouch that positions them to quickly run (or fight), staring intently at the scary thing so as not to miss a single potentially dangerous moment, and sometimes taking a few steps backwards.<\/p>\n\n\n
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    \"A
    Cat play hunting (credit<\/a> Nader Saremi at Unsplash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
    It seems, then, that cat emotions are not just random states of mental dizziness. They are triggers for useful behaviours that help meet the cat’s survival needs: catching food (or just practising), escaping dangerous things, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Emotions guide behaviour: The 3-step process<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    Our cat examples all follow these same 3 steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. ‘Appraising’ a situation as belonging to one of a small number of types (e.g., a “catch food” situation or a “dangerous thing” situation), which:<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Activates a corresponding emotion (e.g., excitement, fear), which:<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. helps evoke a set of behaviours that are adapted to this type of situation (e.g., stalking prey, escaping)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      Exactly why that middle step is necessary is a little bit of a mystery. But for whatever reason, it does seem to be a part of how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Come on, try to give me a reason why we need emotions<\/h5>
      \n
      Science does not know, but here’s a good guess:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Emotions need to be ongoing signals because the behaviours they trigger often need to be sustained over time and adapted to changing situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      A hunting cat has to keep switching between searching for prey, tracking targets with their eyes, creeping around, leaping, and grabbing. If it is play-fighting they do all this with their claws retracted inside the soft pads of their paws. Perhaps emotions create a sustained buzz of activation that keeps all these options on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Compare that with blinking. Eyeblinks happen in a fraction of a second and don’t usually involve feeling any emotions.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      Why have these patterns? Why not just think and decide what to do?<\/h5>
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      We don’t know, but possibly because it can be very efficient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      If hundreds of situations all call for similar responses, a cat can save time and effort by matching them with that pattern. For example, think of situations that call for being alert, careful, and searching for safety: Seeing a hungry lion, being lost in a strange place, or getting stuck on a high ledge. If the cat’s brain can match tie these all to one emotion (let’s call it “fear”), it can summon the right behaviour patterns very efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      The ancient cat ancestors who were best at quick matching presumably survived better than their cousins who were worse at it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      And humans do this too?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
      Absolutely, yes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      We hear your scepticism. No, you don’t chase laser pointers when you get excited#up. Fair enough.<\/p>\n\n\n
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      #down. Don't be that guy<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      But we humans do go through a very similar 3-step process. Our appraisals may be more nuanced than a cat’s, our range of emotions are likely wider, and our behaviour patterns can be far more complicated, but the 3 steps themselves are very much there <\/span>. And often for broadly similar reasons. Fear, for example, is surprisingly similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Make the connection: This Cognitive Appraisal Theory (as it is sometimes known) is broadly similar to the “law of concern” idea that was discussed in our intro to emotions<\/a>. They both reflect the idea that emotions are targeted towards things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Oh come on, when I get scared I don’t ruffle up the fur on my back and hiss<\/h5>
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      The hairs on your limbs do actually stand up (it’s called “piloerection”), you just don’t notice because those hairs aren’t very long, and you are distracted by the scary thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Admittedly you are genuinely unlikely to hiss, but cats and humans respond to strong fear with a similar freeze\/flight\/fight response<\/a> (and so do rats, Llamas, and all other mammals).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Can you think of a time that you have ever felt (rightly or wrongly) that your physical or emotional safety was suddenly in real danger, even for a moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      When this happens our brains trigger a series of physical and mental responses. Our pupils get bigger to let in more light and focus on the threat, our blood supply gets redirected to our large limb muscles, our hairs, yes, stand up, and our brain largely disconnects its areas responsible for abstract thinking – we might even not be able to talk. All of our attention gets focused on the perceived threat, and one of four behaviour patterns gets triggered instead:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      The first is usually ‘freeze’. Our brain might be racing fast, but our body stops still so that predators might not notice us, or so that we don’t make any damaging mistaken moves#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
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      #down. The author Salmon Rushdie describes<\/a> not reacting at first when a man unexpectedly ran up and started stabbing him with a knife. For a few moments he just lay there while being repeatedly severely injured. Salmon described the experience in very intellectual terms (i.e., his brain just not understanding that it was suddenly in this very new reality), but the freeze response is wired into all mammals for many kinds of sudden threats <\/span><\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      The second is ‘flight’ – trying to escape. Your limbs get highly energized and want to move, your eyes dart for somewhere to go (while not wanting to look too far long from the perceived source of danger). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      The third is ‘fight’, where you puff up aggressively and want to lash out, hit or throw things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      The fourth is ‘fawn’: acting in a super nice and compliant way to placate some kind of powerful figure into not hurting us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      The exact specifics of these patterns can vary. A cat’s fight response involves arching their back to look big, showing their teeth, hissing, and scratching with their front and back claws. A human child at school might throw their belongings and scream in rage. An adult might stand tall and give a hard stare before trying to punch them. But the underlying message is always the same: “I am ready and willing to hurt you”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Here is a practical tip: if ever you are in a heated argument, it’s probably wise to take a short break before trying to talk further. It takes the freeze\/flight\/fight response about 20 to 60 minutes to fully clear from our bodies, as stress hormones need filtering from our bloodstream and our brain re-regulates and re-engages its areas responsible for abstract thought. Until this happens people are unlikely to be fully able to process apologies, excuses, justifications, etc.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      “Ah ha”, we hear you say, “what about eating a bar of chocolate then? That gives me positive feelings, and there isn’t any appraisal there”. That’s an excellent point. Technically psychologists don’t class that as an emotion, only as a pleasurable sensation. We can get sensations from anything that our body thinks is fulfilling a need, with the pleasure tending to fade as the need gets met <\/span>. It doesn’t become an emotion (at least in psychology speak) until we add an appraisal that tags it into a more specific shape such as interest or playfulness. The same is true of negative sensations such as an itch or backache. Those don’t become emotions until we appraise them as the fault of a mosquito or ill-fitting chair, which might turn them into irritation or anger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Do we have any other feelings that aren’t emotions?<\/h5>
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      Yes, “moods”. The distinction is that moods are generalized longer-lasting positive or negative feelings, while emotions involve an appraisal directed towards some kind of target. We talk about being “in” a good mood, but being proud “of” someone, or angry “at” what they did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      In practical terms though, our moods and emotions often run into each other. We find it easier to make positive appraisals when in a good mood, and vice versa for negative ones. For instance, you might appraise an advert as amusing when you are in a positive mood but as annoying when you are in a negative one (more on this later).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      Which emotions cause which behaviours? The Appraisals Tendency Framework (ATF)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
      The “Appraisals Tendency Framework” <\/span> describes the way that different emotions (such as fear, guilt, shame, or sadness) help us to describe the general shape of our situation, and trigger appropriate goals in response. This is easiest to understand with examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Example 1 of 2: Sadness vs. Disgust<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
      Cause<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
      We generally feel sad when we have experienced loss or misfortune – someone we love is moving far away perhaps, or one of our favourite things is broken. Disgust, on the other hand, is warning us about contamination; Either physical contamination from something that could make us sick (e.g., a rotting chicken carcass) or moral contamination (e.g., finding out we are standing in a paedophile’s old house).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Attributes<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
      Both emotions are negative, but they tend to suggest that you have different levels of control. If you are sad (say that someone you like is leaving), you might feel that you cannot stop them; you might even agree that their leaving is the right thing to happen (“Go! Catch your bus!”). But if you are feeling disgusted by a steaming puddle of vomit, then you are very definitely going to move far away from it, and nobody is going to stop you#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
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      #down. Part of being a parent or a nurse is suppressing your disgust emotions. You get very used to mopping up body fluids that are not your own, and wiping them carefully off people.<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      Similarly, disgust conveys more certainty<\/strong> about the exact thing that is wrong. If you are sad about a relationship ending then you might feel wistful about what was, what might have been, and whether it could ever have worked out. If you feel disgust then you are likely to be very clear that it is the pool of blood on the floor that is making you feel this way, and that you could not possibly have any more kindly feelings towards it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Response<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
      Sadness and disgust prime different types of goals. Sadness prepares us to mourn, and perhaps to be open to new changes. Disgust makes us want to escape: to eject the disgusting thing, to get away from and avoid it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      An experimental demonstration<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
      What does this have to do with consumption? Lerner and colleagues <\/span> did a very clever study showing how it might matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      They took a large number of participants, one at a time, and first induced them to feel either sad, disgusted, or neutral. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      How do you make people feel sad or disgusted in a study?<\/h5>
      \n
      They had participants watch one of three different film clips. As the authors explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      \n
      “The sadness clip (from The Champ) portrayed the death of a boy\u2019s mentor, the disgust clip (from Trainspotting) portrayed a man using an unsanitary toilet, and the neutral clip (from a National Geographic special) portrayed fish at the Great Barrier Reef. Each clip lasted approximately 4 min.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      “To make the emotional experiences more personally meaningful and intense, we asked participants in the sadness and disgust conditions to write about how they would feel if they were in the situation depicted in the clip. Participants in the neutral condition wrote about their daily activities.”<\/p>\n<\/span><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
      For those of you who have a lot of curiosity and an iron stomach, their Trainspotting clip is almost certainly this one<\/a>. Before clicking you should be aware that a) it is about a Scottish heroin addict who is in a bad state, b) it contains a lot of very rude words, and c) that ‘suppositories’ are medications designed to be taken by inserting them up your bottom. You have been warned.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      Then they established the price that it would take for the participant to be willing to either buy or sell a set of highlighter pens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Can you explain this ‘find their price to buy vs. sell’ procedure in under 100 words?<\/h5>
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      It’s not exciting. But for you? We can try:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      People were given money that could be traded for the pens. Before they knew the amount, those in the ‘buy’ condition chose their price cutoff for the pens (e.g., “if $3.00 or less I’d take the pens, but at $3.50 or more I’d prefer to take the money”). People in the ‘sell’ condition were first given the pens, then, several tasks later, chose their price for receiving money vs. giving the pens back. Finally, a random price was chosen, and all participants received (depending on their choice) the cash or got\/kept the pens.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      Normally we would expect to see an ‘endowment effect’ here, which means that owning a thing (being ‘endowed’ with it) makes it seem more valuable. I might buy a new mug for two pounds, but once it’s mine I won’t give up that same mug for less than four pounds. Why? Because it’s my<\/strong> mug! That makes it special! Bottom line: people usually demand a higher price to sell a thing than they would pay to buy that same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      This study showed that emotions can change this calculus. When people were made to feel disgust, the endowment effect went away. Disgust primes us to have a goal to expel things and get rid of them, so the participants became willing to give their pens away for a very cheap price, and would only buy new ones if they were a real bargain. The disgust made them not want to have things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Being sad, however, triggers goals to try new things. Sad participants became more willing to buy the pen even if it was more expensive (“sure, let’s give it a go”), but also decreased the price at which they were willing to sell it (“bah, I have this thing, but let’s just move on and try something else”). In other words, it reversed the normal endowment effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      These reactions probably were not conscious (nobody was reasoning: “I feel so disgusted from that flim about a revolting toilet that I will sell this pen for cheap”). And we should not overstate how dramatic these results were: disgusted participants were not throwing the pens to the floor and storming out the room – they just changed slightly the price they were willing to accept. That said, many important consumer decisions happen at these fine margins. If you put a pen for sale in a shop, and 0.8% of shoppers buy it instead of 0.4% of shoppers, then you have doubled your sales!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Example 2 of 2: Fear vs. Anger<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
      Cause<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
      It can be very easy to confuse fear and anger because they are both responses to a perceived threat. They are triggered by things that feel dangerous; Ones that we believe have hurt us (or that could hurt us).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Attributes<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
      Again, these are both negative emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      But fear suggests that events are unpredictable, uncertain, hard to control, and full of risk. I might feel fear if my computer won’t start and I don’t have a way to replace it. Or if I get fired and won’t be able to pay my bills. Or if a nearby grizzly bear seems to be interested in eating me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Anger, though, suggests that the threatening thing is predictable, that we have some control or agency towards it, and that the risks are more limited. If some idiot broke my computer, then I know exactly who that jerk is, and I’ve even got a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do to them as soon as I get the chance. The same thing is true of the contemptible idiot who tried to get me fired, or the one who didn’t pack the bear spray like I repeatedly told them to. This is anger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Response<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
      Fear activates a general goal of escape (and possibly also freezing or fighting – see the accordion box above about ruffled fur and hissing). Anger, on the other hand, suggests a goal of revenge: punishing or attacking the person who caused us this grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Is this why a lot of political talk is so angry?<\/h5>
      \n
      Quite possibly! On some level, people seem to enjoy being angry, perhaps because it produces that sense of control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      If you want to harness people into political action (be it by voting, protesting, or donating money) then it makes sense to start by harnessing their fears (“bad things are happening!” and “They are destroying the things that we care about!”) but then to try to switch it into anger by clearly identifying a very specific “them” to paint those fears onto#up: “It is those<\/strong> people’s fault! They are the ones ruining everything”. Then fear can be turned into anger, which makes people feel like they have more control, and can take action to attack or punish the culprit for our woes!<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      #down. Even the most brief glance of the history of angry politics shows an enormous amount of flexibility about who exaclty \"they\" are, and a routine willingness to switch targets. Immigrants have often been a popular choice, as have rich bosses, minoirities, and occasionally even intellectuals and professors (as professors ourselves, let us just say: \"MUHAHAHAHA...\")<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      Sometimes this blame is a fair and accurate representation of the situation (i.e., “they” really are ruining everything). Often, though, complicated problems are conveniently boiled down to a simplistic blaming of one person or group. There’s a word for this: “scapegoating”, and humans have been doing it since the dawn of recorded time (and no doubt before).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      Positive emotions are a little different: Broaden and build <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
      Positive emotions also contain information. For instance, pride and surprise suggest different things about positive events. Pride suggests that the events were predictable and brought about by oneself (e.g., “I wrote that whole chapter. It wasn’t easy, but I did it!”), whereas (good) surprise happens from positive events that were harder to foresee and were more likely caused by other people (e.g., “OMG, I didn’t expect this! You guys are the best!”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Positive emotions also trigger goals, but they can be more difficult to spot than they are for negative goals. For instance, can you think what goal pride would give you? To find someone to high-five?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Fortunately, we have a theory called ‘broaden and build’ that describes what goals positive emotions generate, and why they are harder to see <\/span>. It suggests that goals from negative emotions are narrow and directly targeted (e.g., ‘attack this thing!’ or ‘flee from that thing!’), which makes them easy to see (“I want to run very fast!”). Positive emotions, in contrast, signal that things are generally going well, there is no immediate threat we need to focus on, and so we can search more broadly and creatively for what to do next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Positive Emotion<\/strong><\/td>Goal<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
      Joy<\/td>To play<\/td><\/tr>
      Interest<\/td>To explore<\/td><\/tr>
      Contentment<\/td>To savour and mentally integrate our experiences<\/td><\/tr>
      Love<\/td>To be joyful, interested, and content (within the context of a close relationship)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>
      Broaden & Build theory <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      What makes these goals so hard to spot is that any of them can translate into a thousand activities. If you want to play then you could edit a video, paint, climb trees, ride your bike, tell a fart joke, or dress up in someone else’s clothes. Exploration could look similar: You could learn new ways to edit videos, try different kinds of painting (“watercolours!”), ride your bike somewhere new, etc. It can be hard for someone watching to spot an emotional state connecting these many actions – it can be hard to spot even in yourself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      According to this theory, these broadening behaviours are important not just because they get us to try new things (hence the name: ‘broaden<\/strong>‘) but also because they help us build up new mental and social resources (hence: ‘build<\/strong>‘). We can develop skills, learn new knowledge, become physically fitter, and develop strong social bonds through playing, exploring, and loving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      These are considered resources because we can draw on them later, even when the good mood has gone. For instance, your loving relationships might build up a network of people who will help you when you get in trouble. Your play might make you faster at running, which could be useful in an emergency. If you learned about snakes for fun, you might find out that constrictors (such as pythons) are easy to unwrap from around your body so long as they don’t trap your arms against your sides, which might help in an unexpected future encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      So, positive emotions are more useful?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
      Positive and negative emotions are useful for different things. Positive ones tell us that we are in a safe place to grow, learn, and build resources. Negative ones often warn us about trouble, signalling us to avoid mistakes by slowing down and being careful. Both of those can be useful signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      We should note, however, that humans have a well-documented “negativity bias<\/strong>“. We tend to pay more attention to negative events and assign more weight to the signals they send (Wikipedia might not be a reputable academic source, but it does have a pretty good primer<\/a> on this if you are interested). The negativity bias may not feel very adaptive in our modern world; Our environment has been so engineered for safety that our remaining problems generally lean towards failing to grow and thrive fully#up. The negativity bias probably made more sense in our evolutionary environment, though. Our ancestors who missed many opportunities for growth will have been more successful than their cousins who missed many opportunities to avoid being killed by angry neighbours or eaten by hungry bears.<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      #down. Assuming you are housed in a reasonably safe neighbourhood, are not experiencing food insecurity, and aren't currently exposed to people who are abusive. That assumption is probably reasonable for most readers of this book, but probably not for most people on our planet; There are very strong selection pressures for who tends to read university level textbooks<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      Application: Matching consumer emotions to actions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
      A lot of marketing is about trying to match consumer goals (such as “eat food”) with a relevant product offer (“mmm, pizza”). Matching people’s emotion-driven goals to your product offering is what marketing practitioners call an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Matching adverts to emotions<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
      Do you know the emotional state that people may be in when they see your ads? Sometimes you can! When an advert is embedded in a comedy, people are likely to be happier than they are if it is embedded in a tragic drama. Is this information useful?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      There has been a lot of research into whether ads work better when they match the emotional context in which they appear. Stipp <\/span> offers a good summary, reporting that most of this work has focussed on TV advertising, but that it is increasingly interested in online and mobile advertising (where you can sometimes know the exact time and geographic location that it will be shown within). The results of these studies paint a somewhat complicated picture, but overall they do seem to show that emotional matching is generally beneficial – so long as the audience is willing to have any interest in the product at all, and so long as the advert fits the product. For example, an ad created for a brand with a very sincere personality might do poorly if it is filled with jokes because this ad won’t communicate the value people get from the product; this might remain true even if these jokes would match the emotional context of the sitcom the ad is shown within. And that emotional matching won’t matter at all if the audience is not interested to start with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      One of Stipp’s more interesting suggestions from reviewing this literature is that it can be a mistake to think of shows as only having one emotional state. Drama’s often include ligher funny elements, and the best comedies often have poignant moments and sub-plots (an example clip<\/a> from the sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which the main character’s father leaves him). Following this observation, there is some evidence now that adverts can be even more effective when they match their context across multiple different emotional dimensions (so more complex ads in more complex shows), and possibly especially when the context contains direct other goal states (e.g., themes of sharing in Christmas shows, or a show revolving around a coffee shop being matched to ads for a coffee shop).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Changing consumer’s emotions <\/h5>\n\n\n\n
      While advertisers have little influence over the emotional state they find consumers in, this is less true of retailing contexts, which can be much more interactive and enveloping. Shops, malls, markets, and even web pages can be pleasing or irritating, plain or stylish, and more or less immersive. <\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"Man<\/a>
      A highly immersive bazaar full of sights, sounds, and smells (Pixabay<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      The more we move from online into physical spaces the more our external senses (touch, sight, taste, smell, and sound) can create experiences, both focal ones (think of the smell that strikes you walking past a Sephora shop), and ambient background ones (think of the low lighting inside a Hollister shop). Some may even manipulate our internal senses#up too, such as bakeries wafting smells that make us feel hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      #down. 'Interoception' refers to our brains ways of detecting internal states like hunger, emotions, body position, breathing, etc.<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n
      \n
      \"A
      A creative shop design that uses shape, colour, and lighting to evoke emotions (photo by author)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      In B2B markets where a single purchase can be for millions of pounds (or hundreds of millions), it is common for potential customers to be plied with food and drink at fancy restaurants, or taken to plush box seats at popular sporting events. For an even more creative example of ways in which people create an emotional tone, here is a (fun!) podcast episode that asks a professional auctioneer why they talk like that?<\/a>” (haven’t you always wondered about their rapid-fire hard-to-understand patter?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Other sources of predictable emotion involve major news and world events. This could include unusually good or bad weather, geopolitical tragedy (war, famine, terror attacks), major sports events (the Olympics, the World Cup, Championship games), major holidays (Buddha’s Birthday, Chinese New Year, Christmas, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, Hannukkah, and, best of all, National Textbook Day#up).<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      #down. Which absolutely should be a thing. Note to all of our readers who are Presidents, Prime Ministers, senators, etc: Get your act together!<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      Feelings as Information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      One of the reasons that feelings might be useful for steering our behaviour is that they can contain a lot of information about the world. That might sound strange at first: If you want to know the length of the Nile, it is likely more helpful to consult Wikipedia than your emotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      But your emotions do seem to be a way that your brain can start alerting you to patterns it has noticed, even if it can’t articulate them any better yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      An instructive example: The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
      The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a favourite of psychologists <\/span>. It involves asking people to choose between two decks of cards. Each time they chose a deck you turn over its top card, revealing a money gamble: Maybe they won a dollar, or lost a dollar and fifty cents. They make this same choice many times over, winning and losing small amounts of real money. The important things to know about this are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        \n
      1. Each deck contains cards that return wins and losses, but some decks give better average returns than others. These decks pay bigger positive returns more often.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      2. Participants are not told about this difference between the decks. They have to work it out for themselves <\/li>\n\n\n\n
      3. They work it out by gambling dozens of times, experiencing many wins and losses from each deck<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
        Participants do seem to learn these patterns eventually, but the interesting thing is what happens before then. They start preferring the ‘good’ deck early on, choosing it increasingly often, and reporting positive feelings towards it. They experience this as a ‘hunch’, or an ‘intuition’: the deck feels good, to them, but they can’t explain why. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Even stranger still: If you put electrodes on their skin you can see its electrical conductance going up as they choose cards from the better deck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Why? Because excitement makes us sweat very slightly, and sweat (i.e. salt water) conducts electricity well. The bottom line is that our emotions seem to be learning what’s happening even before our cognitive thoughts can catch up <\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Turning emotional learning into cash: Being a chicken sexer<\/h5>
        \n
        One of the highest-paid jobs in agriculture areas used to be chicken sexing. This is exactly what it sounds like: Identifying the sex of newborn baby chicks (“this one’s a boy, this one’s a girl”… that’s what you were thinking of, right?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        It turns out that boy and girl chicks look very nearly identical when they are first hatched. There is no one feature that tells them apart; They aren’t bigger, they don’t have longer beaks, etc. Farmers needed to know which is which, though, because the boys can’t lay eggs, the farmers only need to keep a handful of males around for other purposes (you don’t want to know what happened to the surplus boys – agriculture is not for the squeamish).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        The only way to tell boy and girl chicks apart is to be shown thousands of them and be taught: “This is a boy, this is a girl. Girl, boy, boy, boy, girl, boy, girl, girl girl, girl, boy…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        At no point can you ever explain what makes one chicken a boy vs. a girl, but you nevertheless start to be able to just ‘know’ by looking at them. It feels like a boy or a girl, and your intuition tends to be right. And because your brain can tell the difference (while the farmer’s brain cannot) you could make a good living by charging them for that information.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
        If this sounds to you like the quick efficient pattern recognition ‘System 1’ thinking that we learned about in chapter 1<\/a>, then you are not the only one <\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
        There is a case to be made that good and bad feelings are largely how system 1 passes information to us. We feel positive ‘vibes’ when system 1 detects a pattern that would help us meet our currently activated goal, and negative ones if the pattern looks like one that blocks our goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Perhaps this is part of why Watson & Crick’s journey to discover the structure of DNA was so emotional: Not only were their strong goals being constantly met or blocked (which triggers release or frustration), but they were constantly having ideas about things they might do, and making system 1 judgments about whether these were promising or not, and this gave them lots of positive and negative mental activation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Feelings as information theory<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
        A psychologist called Norbert Schwarz <\/span> argues that people draw information from their feelings like this all the time. His “Feelings as Information Theory” says that feelings are a default cue for everyday decisions and judgments. They are often the first thing we consult when deciding what to buy, whether to give up on a task, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        There are two key elements to this theory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          \n
        1. Feelings are only one source of information<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        2. Feelings can be tricky to interpret<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
          Schwartz’s articles tend to focus on #2, but we will start with #1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Feelings are only one source of information<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
          When do we pay attention to our emotions? When should we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          We can make a prediction based on the idea that feelings are how System 1 communicates with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Specifically, emotions should be most useful when we have had enough experience with something that is a bit chaotic and noisy, for our brain to start noticing patterns and regularities in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Think of the Iowa Gambling Task: The ‘data’ people observe is messy (i.e., even the ‘good’ deck still often loses money), but people can still start to recognize the better deck after experiencing enough draws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          This is very different from System 2, which works best when observing a tiny number of clues that can all fit into working memory, and be processed logically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          So what might that look like in a consumer context?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          System 1 should be most helpful when choosing things we have bought often, and where the success of a purchase comes from a complicated mix of factors. Think of a car: The best one for you probably depends on a combination of many things: how it looks, how it feels to drive, how safe it is, how reliable it is, how good its storage is for the kinds of things you carry in your life, and many other factors as well. You can’t calculate that by putting 7 +\/-2 numbers into a precise formula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          In other words, system 1 is probably a better match for most normal consumer buying situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          System 1 vs. 2 predictions in a mess consumer world<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
          Tim Wilson has done much work pitting consumers’ intuition against careful thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          One such set of studies <\/span> compared students’ preferences for various strawberry jams and university courses against those of experts. The students did worse when asked to analyse reasons for their feelings, and\/or to “think about all the product’s attributes”. Asking students to take a careful analytic approach (i.e., System 2) consistently shifted their ratings away from the experts’ ratings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          This is just what our theory predicts. Most students have had lots of experience with jams and university courses, and the quality of these products depends on multiple factors. System 1 is good at those things, whereas System 2 may have caused them to overthink things: perhaps over-fixating on the few factors that filled their short-term memory (“this one is sweetest” or “that class seems easiest”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Another study dispensed with the experts <\/span>. This one let female students choose a poster to take home. There were two types: One classically beautiful (Monet’s Nymph\u00e9as<\/em>, and Van Gogh’s Les Iris Saint R\u00e9my<\/em>), and the other more contemporary and humorous (i.e., a cartoon of animals riding in a hot air balloon, a photo of a cat on a rope captioned “Gimmie a Break”, and a photo of a cat on a fence captioned: “One Step at a Time”).<\/p>\n\n\n
          \n
          \"Van
          Van Gogh’s Irises (public domain, credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
          When participants were asked about the reasons for their preferences they became more likely to choose a ‘clever’ painting. Was this the right choice? They contacted their participants three weeks later to ask how happy they were with their choices. The people who had analysed their reasons were less happy#up – especially if they had rated themselves (back in that first session) as not knowing much about art.<\/p>\n\n\n
          \n
          #down. The authors predicted that those who chose the clever art would be less satisfied, but their numbers didn't qutie show this. The number of student participants was not large, though, so we must take much of this with a grain of salt - as ever we need to look for patterns across many studies, and preferably for high quality studies with many participants<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
          Again, it seems that system 2 careful thinking was not a good guide to people’s actual lasting preferences. Even people who haven’t been trained in art have seen enough pictures to start recognizing patterns in what they find beautiful. System 2 presumably caused them to over-focus on a few easier-to-articulate factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Feelings can be tricky to interpret<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
          This is the part that Feelings as Information theory tends to focus on. Our feelings send us simple messages like “good”, “bad”, “escape”, or “explore”, but they can’t tell us why, or exactly what to do. Say you feel slightly nervous at being taken to an unusual restaurant (“edible algae dishes inspired by the 1966 music album Pet Sounds<\/a>“). Is this feeling telling you to leave the restaurant? To pick the safest possible dish? Or a warning that you might miss a truly unforgettable authentic experience if you stick to the lichen parma#up? The feeling can’t tell you this. Not on its own. You have to interpret it as best you can.<\/p>\n\n\n
          \n
          #down. Random fact: Lichens are<\/a> delicacies in some cultures<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
          Do you have a less weird example?<\/h5>
          \n
          For you? Of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Schwartz likes to give the example of a study <\/span> which put people into a positive or negative mood and then asked them to name as many kinds of birds as they could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Some people were told they could stop when satisfied with their accomplishments. Of the people given this instruction, the happy ones tended to stop soonest. They appear to have interpreted their positive feelings as a signal that they have been so successful at naming birds that it was ok to stop now (“um, Sparrow, duck, chicken… yes, I feel good about that, I’m done!”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Others were told to stop when they no longer enjoyed the task. The pattern reversed in those given these instructions; Happy participants were now the ones who kept going longest. They appear to have interpreted their positive feelings as a signal that they were still enjoying the task (“um, Sparrow, duck, chicken… What fun, I could do this all day! African Swallow, European Swallow…”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          All of these participants used their feelings as clues for how to behave, but one group interpreted positive feelings as a sign to stop (“I’m happy with what I’ve done”), and the other as a sign to keep going (“I’m happy to do more”). In reality, both sets of participants were ‘misattributing’ emotions they had received from an earlier happy or sad film clip to the bird task.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
          Most real situations are probably less confusing than these examples, but our emotions don’t come with clear instructions, so we do have to interpret them. This can be tricky at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Ok, but is this ever a real problem?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
          Consider a doctor who has to decide whether to prescribe antibiotics to a sick patient who is asking for them. Antibiotics can kill some types of bacteria but do nothing to viruses, and should be avoided when they aren’t needed. Why? Because every use is an opportunity for bacteria to develop resistance against them. This is a serious problem – the World Health Organization describes antibiotic-resistant bacteria as<\/a> a “top global public health and development threat…” with estimates suggesting that they contribute to millions of deaths per year, and could even make routine surgeries impossible if they become more widespread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          So what is a doctor to do? Data suggests that they start off fairly restrained, but prescribe them more often as they get an hour or more into their work shift – but that their restraint is restored by having a meal break <\/span>#up. <\/p>\n\n\n
          \n
          #down. See here<\/a> for a quick read about this study, and a pretty line graph of its results<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
          Why would this be? Because the doctor’s System 2 thinking knows that over-use of antibiotics is dangerous, but their patients pull at their emotions saying: “Come on doc, I’m suffering, isn’t there something you can give me that might help?”. The doctors have to interpret whether the discomfort they feel is a sign of professional responsibility towards the future health of millions of humans or the one right in front of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Why isn’t their intuition more useful? Possibly because they don’t get the instant feedback that gamblers and jam tasters can train their intuition on. The doctors write a prescription, the patient goes home, and the doctor might not see how quickly they recover. And the doctor certainly can’t see all the most antibiotic susceptible bacteria in the patient’s gut being killed off, leaving only the most resistant ones. Their intuition might not get the experience it needs to be refined into strong intuitive signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Well at least those tired decisions aren’t putting anyone in prison<\/h5>
          \n
          It’s funny you mention that…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          A study of Israeli parole judges <\/span> found that they agreed to release about 65% of the prisoners for the first case they heard in the morning. They release fewer and fewer prisoners as their day wears on until their rate reaches nearly zero. Then, after they’ve had a break and a snack, their rate of freeing prisoners goes back up to about 65%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Why might this be? Do they hear the best cases first? If so, why do they start releasing prisoners again after they’ve had a snack? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Perhaps there aren’t any good logical rules on which prisoners are likely to commit new crimes if released, so they are forced to make a judgment call based only on their intuition. But as they get increasingly tired and hungry from a long day of work, their intuition increasingly tells them that they are grumpy and upset, and they might misattribute some of this feeling to their evaluation of the prisoner sweating in front of them, pleading for their freedom (“I am sorry! I have mended my ways! I’ve been a model prisoner! Please give me another chance!”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          The parole officers, like the doctors, don’t get much feedback on how correct their decisions are. They send some prisoners back to jail (who never get a chance to prove the judge wrong), and release others (whom they often won’t hear about again for years, if ever). They don’t get the experience for their emotions to start recognizing any patterns.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
          Can we be smart at knowing when to listen to our emotions?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
          Some people do seem more emotionally intelligent than others, and there is evidence that this does make people better at knowing when to use System 2 thinking <\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          To demonstrate this, Kidwell et. al. <\/span> created a situation in which system 2 should perform best (i.e., with a clear answer that can be calculated) and tried to distract people with an emotional branding cue. They found that emotionally intelligent consumers were better at recognizing this as a system 2 situation and overriding the emotional cue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          They did this by showing participants adverts for four cameras. There was an image of each camera, and objective scores for it on five key attributes: image resolution, storage capacity, focus and zoom capabilities, and weight. One camera was set to be objectively the best, being equal or moderately superior to the others on every dimension. Not surprisingly, 88% of participants chose this one as best. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          At least, 88% of participants thought this when the cameras were named “model A”, “model B”, etc. It changed when the experimenters added brand names to these same cameras, with these same ratings. The experimenters labelled the worst 3 cameras with well-known brand names (i.e., Nikon, Canon, and Olympus) and the best camera with an unknown brand name (“Omega”). Now the objectively superior Omega flipped from being rated as the best to being rated as the worst! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          The interesting thing is that this reversal was less true for those participants who scored highest in consumer emotional intelligence. Those participants were better at knowing that their emotional associations probably were as useful in this particular situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          So it seems that while feelings may be tricky to interpret we can become more or less skilled in using them well. Perhaps reason for optimism!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Do you want to know how high your Consumer Emotional Intelligence is? You can take the researcher's test here<\/a> to get a score.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
          So should I trust my intuition?<\/h5>
          \n
          At least you know the questions to ask now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n