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Mood and emotions in decision making - How mood and emotions influence choices

SKILL: Critical reflection,  making decisions and problem solving 

 

EQF LEVEL (INTERNAL REFERENCE): 2

Keywords 

  1. Mood 
  2. Emotions
  3. Reason
  4. Information
  5. Choice 

Introduction

By the end of this LU you will learn about the role of emotions and mood in decision making and discover the close relationship that exists between emotion and reason when analyzing information in order to make a choice. 



Content

Mood and emotions are two aspects that greatly influence your life as well as that of others and also affect the way you make decisions. 

 

You can distinguish mood from emotions basically by duration: emotions last a few seconds or minutes, while mood has a longer duration with constant intensity and characteristics. 

 

Emotion is an experience that involves both psychological (your subjective experience) and physiological aspects (your heart beating faster, sweating more, etc.) that causes you to behave in a certain way. 

 

Mood, on the other hand, is a deep state that lasts over a long period of time and is not triggered by a particular event. Even if you just consider the common language you normally use, you know that mood can be positive or negative and, therefore, you can be in a good mood or a bad mood

 

If you are in a "good mood" during decision making:

If, on the other hand, you are in a "bad mood": 

 

Both emotions and mood are important sources of information to use in evaluating situations during decision making and can be a guide to making a choice.

 

When you are faced with a decision to make you should, therefore, reason out why you are feeling certain emotions and then choose. Without the contribution of your emotions it is impossible to decide: if you do not have a good ability to understand the emotions you feel, it is easier for your decisions to be of poor quality. 

 

Emotion and reason are often conflated, distinguishing between the "cold decision maker" and the "emotional" decision maker, but in reality they are perfectly integrated. In fact, it starts from knowing oneself and one's emotions that can give information that rationality will then use to make the best choice. 

 

To make the decision making process, linking emotions and reason, clearer,we need to consider 3 steps which are fundamental to the process:

 

 

 

Three different strategies for analyzing information during decision making can be distinguished, and in each, emotions and mood play a different role: 

 

  1. The choice you have to make is "familiar", so it involves something you know well. You evaluate the situation the same way you did the other times using the same information without thinking about the mood or emotions of the moment. 

 

  1. The choice you have to make is unimportant. You use your emotions and mood as your only sources of information and this leads you to simplify the situation a lot and use only a few cues to make your decision. If you are in a positive mood you are more likely to use this strategy.   

 

  1. The choice is atypical and complex. Do a very thorough memory search and careful processing of the remembered material. Then, add the  information that comes from the emotions that the decision situation you are in is eliciting from you to get as complete a picture of the situation as possible before proceeding. You will find that f you are in a negative mood, you are more likely to use this strategy because you are more likely to perceive the situation as "threatening" and therefore want to be more accurate in your analysis of the information. 

 

Final test 

Test 1 (Find the incorrect answers): 

Mood and emotion are distinguished because:

  1. They have different duration
  2. Only emotions are triggered by a specific event
  3. Only mood is a deep and lasting state
  4. They both do not influence decision making

 

Test 2 (correct choice) 

If you are in a "good mood" during decision making:

  1. You have unpleasant expectations
  2. You have a desire to change your current state 
  3. You have easier access to positive memories
  4. Tend to avoid critical situations more

 

Test 3 (fill the gap): 

In decision making, emotion and reason are ________ :

 

  1. Two incompatible aspects
  2. Difficult to hold together
  3. Perfectly integrated
  4. Alternative choices



Test 4 (Matching sentences/words):

Match  each word with the corresponding sentence: 

  1. When you use information from past decisions without thinking about mood and emotion, the choice is > familiar
  2. When you use emotions and mood as your only source of information, choice is of little > importance
  3. When you do a thorough memory search and add the information given by emotions, the search is > complex




Language Point

 

Read the sentence below:

 

You can distinguish mood from emotions basically by duration: emotions last a few seconds or minutes, while mood has a longer duration, with constant intensity and  characteristics.

 

The author uses a semicolon after the first part of the sentence, which is a stand alone sentence. This is done so the sentences flow better or to cut down on the number of words being used. It means the same as that is e.g.

 

 

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