An Influence of Positive Affect on Decision Making in Complex Situations: Theoretical Issues With Practical Implications

By Alice M. Isen. 2001

854 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article reviews evidence indicating that, in most circumstances, positive affect enhances problem solving and decision making, leading to cognitive processing that is not only flexible, innovative, and creative, but also thorough and efficient. These results have implications regarding consumers’ potential reactions to affect generated by ads, products, consumption situations, and service encounters. These cognitive effects of positive affect are considered in the context of effects on social interaction that show that positive affect leads to helping, generosity, and interpersonal understanding. Together, these findings suggest implications especially for customer satisfaction, and particularly for a role for employee positive affect, or employee satisfaction, in generating customer satisfaction. Moreover, studies specifically in the domain of medical decision making and problem solving indicate that these implications would apply to the specific areas of doctor–patient interaction, medical decision making, and medical consumer satisfaction. Finally, it is suggested that the benefits of positive affect be considered when formulating healthcare policy and be included in economic models and policy decisions more generally as well.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5bf730f8c07eb46bd93d4fda13e0e7f4ea47260f

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Citations in the corpus

Human abilities: emotional intelligence. (2008, background): “For example, positive emotions promote greater creativity in some contexts (Amabile et al. 2005, Averill & Nunley 1992, Isen 2001, Lyubomirsky et al. 2005).”
Psychological Antecedents to Socially Responsible Behavior (2008, neutral): “In general, positive affect has been shown to enhance problem solving and creativity (Isen, 2001); to broaden people’s thought-action repertoires and build long-term resources to help them deal with future challenges (Fredrickson, 1998), Positive affect could also facilitate flexible thinking even w”
The psychology of doing nothing: forms of decision avoidance result from reason and emotion. (2003, background): “Take, for example, the “old sergeant syndrome” described by Janis and Mann (1977b). Infantry on the front lines of battle for long periods, witnessing the death of comrades and having no hope of transfer, have been known to ignore decisions required to protect themselves under fire or from routine s”
The Energizing Nature of Work Engagement: Toward a New Need-Based Theory of Work Motivation (2017, background): “Other research has shown that positive moods predict reduced absenteeism (Forgas & George, 2001) and increased variety seeking in complex situations (Isen, 2001).”
The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda (2018, neutral): “Static CE Dynamic CE Development of CE construct Holbrook and Hirschman (1982), Bitner (1990), Hui and Bateson (1991), Bitner (1992), Arnould and Price (1993), Pine and Gilmore (1998), Carù and Cova (2003), Vargo and Lusch (2004), Verhoef et al. (2009), Patrı́cio et al. (2011), Achrol and Kotler (2”
Emotion and Rationality: A Critical Review and Interpretation of Empirical Evidence (2007, background): “According to Isen (2001), these and other findings show that positive moods have generally beneficial effects on reasoning, problem solving, judgment, and decision making.”
Consumer Inference: A Review of Processes, Bases, and Judgment Contexts (2004, background): “…hypothesis suggests that positive affect encourages heuristic processing and that negative affect encourages systematic processing, but Isen (2001) argued that heuristic processing has been confused with efficient processing and that positive affect results in more flexible, creative,…”
Appreciation: a spiritual path to finding value and meaning in the workplace (2012, background): “However, over the last decade, interest has been increasing regarding the influence of positive emotions on cognition, especially decision-making and problem solving (Isen 2001).”
The Privileged Role of the Late-Night Joke: Exploring Humor's Role in Disrupting Argument Scrutiny (2008, background): “Although the relationship between affect and argument scrutiny remains the subject of ongoing debate (Isen, 2001; Lee & Sternthal, 1999), research in this area generally suggests that individuals in a positive mood experience a reduction in systematic processing of information and instead are more l”
Keep Your Cool or Let it Out: Nonlinear Effects of Expressed Arousal on Perceptions of Consumer Reviews (2017, background): “…arousal on cognitive performance and task outcomes (Naqvi, Shiv, and Bechara 2006; Tice, Bratslavsky, and Baumeister 2001), and well-known findings in the marketing literature have linked elevated arousal to both positive and negative consumer outcomes (e.g., Isen 2001; Shiv and Fedorikhin 1999).”
The Importance of Being Emotional : How do Emotions Affect Entrepreneurial Opportunity Evaluation and Exploitation? (2010, background): “Thereby, it is assumed that people in positive emotional states will use the emotion as additional information and interpret the situation as an unproblematic one (e.g. Isen, 2001).”