The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits

TLDR

The study revisits the inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit. The authors aim to explain this inverse relationship by showing that affect drives both risk and benefit judgments, and to test whether altering affect changes those judgments. They conduct two experiments: one imposes time pressure to limit analytic thought and enhance affective reliance, and another manipulates affective evaluation to observe its impact on risk and benefit judgments. Both experiments confirm that affect drives risk and benefit judgments, with time pressure strengthening the inverse relationship and affect manipulation altering both judgments. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

This paper re-examines the commonly observed inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit. We propose that this relationship occurs because people rely on affect when judging the risk and benefit of specific hazards. Evidence supporting this proposal is obtained in two experimental studies. Study 1 investigated the inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgments under a time-pressure condition designed to limit the use of analytic thought and enhance the reliance on affect. As expected, the inverse relationship was strengthened when time pressure was introduced. Study 2 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) would systematically change the risk and benefit judgments for that item. Both studies suggest 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. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.