Emotional Beliefs

Abstract

A belief in alien abduction is an emotional belief, but so is a belief that Iran intends to build nuclear weapons, that one's country is good, that a sales tax is unjust, or that French decision makers are irresolute. Revolutionary research in the brain sciences has overturned conventional views of the relationship between emotion, rationality, and beliefs. Because rationality depends on emotion, and because cognition and emotion are nearly indistinguishable in the brain, one can view emotion as constituting and strengthening beliefs such as trust, nationalism, justice or credibility. For example, a belief that another's commitment is credible depends on one's selection (and interpretation) of evidence and one's assessment of risk, both of which rely on emotion. Observing that emotion and cognition co-produce beliefs has policy implications: how one fights terrorism changes if one views credibility as an emotional belief.

Emotions and Identity as Foreign Policy Determinants: Serbian Approach to Relations with Russia

“…Defining identity as "that part of an individual's self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership" (quoted in Sasley 2011, p. 457), 1 those papers argue that an actor's self-identification with a certain group (or an individual actor) can alone determine his/her behaviour, in which case his/her cognitive function is accompanied by significant affective incentives (Chafetz et al 1998;Mercer 2005Mercer , 2010Sasley 2011). When this happens, the actor perceives the group as part of him/herself and looks at the world from the group's perspective, considering it as diverse from and better than other groups, a tendency that springs from the human basic psychological need to evaluate themselves positively (Mercer 2005, p. 96;Sasley 2011, p. 458).…”

“…In this study, such words as "emotional", "identity-driven", etc., are used as opposites of "cognitive", "pragmatic", "driven by utility maximisation" rather than of "rational", "right" or "good". In fact, as neuropsychological studies show, accurate judgements require emotions (Mercer 2005(Mercer , 2006(Mercer , 2010 and therefore, a study of rational decisions necessitates focusing not only on cognition, but also on emotion. In reality, "hyperrational" actions tend to be as detrimental to their makers as overly emotional ones: as phrased by Mercer (2010, pp 7-8), "[e]xtreme emotion distorts judgement, as does extreme cognition".…”

“…In reality, "hyperrational" actions tend to be as detrimental to their makers as overly emotional ones: as phrased by Mercer (2010, pp 7-8), "[e]xtreme emotion distorts judgement, as does extreme cognition". According to him, "someone deprived of all emotion becomes vacuous, not neutral" (Mercer 2010, p. 13, see also Stein 2013 [p]eople without emotion may know they should be ethical, and may know they should be influenced by norms, and may know that they should not make disastrous financial decisions, but this knowledge is abstract and inert and does not weigh on their decisions. They do not care about themselves or about others, and they neither try to avoid making mistakes nor are they capable of learning from their mistakes.…”

Mortality awareness and water decisions: a social psychological analysis of supply-management, demand-management and soft-path paradigms

“…Although more or 'better' information, regulation and economic incentives do influence behaviour, they are rarely enough to fundamentally shift belief systems, values and long-term behaviours, all of which are heavily laden with implicit emotions, including mortality fears (Arndt & Solomon 2003;Ariely, 2008;Mercer, 2010;Carmi, Arnon, & Orion 2015;Sarewitz, 2004). For example, recent research demonstrates that the psychological response to perceived threats to self or society can make individuals less receptive to information about urban flooding prevention (Mann & Wolfe, 2016).…”

Affect is what states make of it: articulating everyday experiences of 9/11

“…To compound matters, affect and emotion are not particularly straightforward either. In recent years there has been a growing interest in the roles of affect and emotion in world politics (Crawford, 2000;Bleiker and Hutchison, 2008;Mercer, 2010;Ross, 2006). 1 Some of these scholars draw a distinction between affect and emotion, arguing that they are best understood as separate yet related concepts.…”