Affect, Reason, and Decision Making (ICPSR 24610)

Version Date: Sep 22, 2009

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Principal Investigator(s):
Paul Slovic, Decision Research; Melissa Finucane, Decision Research; Ali Alhakami, Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (Saudi Arabia). Psychology Department

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24610.v1

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Summary

This study examines the commonly observed inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit. The researchers proposed that this relationship occurs because people rely on affect when judging the risk and benefit of specific hazards. The study tested and confirmed the hypothesis that providing information designed to alter the favorability of one's overall affective evaluation of an item (say nuclear power, natural gas, and food preservatives) would systematically change the risk and benefit judgments for that item. The study suggests that people seem prone to using an "affect heuristic" which improves judgmental efficiency by deriving both risk and benefit evaluations from a common source -- affective reactions to the stimulus item.

Citation

Slovic, Paul, Finucane, Melissa, and Alhakami, Ali. Affect, Reason, and Decision Making. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-09-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24610.v1

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Funding

National Science Foundation (SBR 9422754), National Science Foundation (SBR 9709307)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1995

Date of Collection

1997-08 -- 1999-07

Data Collection Notes

  1. For a more detailed description of the study design, results, and discussion, please see the Finucane et al. paper included in the ICPSR codebook.

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Study Purpose

The purpose of this study was to re-examine the commonly observed inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit.

Sample

Convenience sample.

Universe

College students.

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2009-09-22

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Slovic, Paul, Melissa Finucane, and Ali Alhakami. Affect, Reason, and Decision Making. ICPSR24610-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-09-22. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24610.v1
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Notes