The Emotional Effects Of Implicit Cognitive Mechanisms In The Decision-making Experimental Study

There are two paradigms in the research area of decision making for a long time. Normal decision making is deeply involved in setting up mathematical models. It has two indispensable prerequisites: There is a stable preference system and a large capacity of calculation in human. Under the idea of bounded rationality, descriptive decision making is dedicated to exploring human real decision behaviors. But it is mainly concentrated on discovering heuristics and biases. It claims that human is irrational because it uses the rules of consistency and invariability to evaluate people's decision behaviors.Based on these theories, This research is primarily concerned with emotion which has the strong taste of mentality and has been be ignored since the time of cool cognition. It's main issue is to investigate the mechanisms of the impact of emotion on decision making from the perspective of emotion's function. On research paradigms, while it is in line with that of description to investigate people's real decision behavior, it is not stubborn to claim that human is irrational to violate the rules of consistency and invariability in the process of decision making. In the light of theory of evolution, it reexamines the elements which influence people's decision making and reinterprets the irrational behaviors.This article includes four chapters. The first chapter is a review on three aspects: The main ideas of two theories (normal/ descriptive) in decision making. The attitude toward the relationship between emotion and decision making in this two theories are reviewed. Recent point of view on the relationship between emotion and cognition is reexamined.The second chapter represents several hypotheses of this research: 1. The mechanism which emotion influences cognitive strategy is implicit; 2. The mechanism of emotion priming is implicit; 3. Negative bias can be automatically activated. It can give some explanations to sunk cost effect phenomenon etc. 4. Exploring how emotion influences the framing effect. 5. Exploring the effects of emotion on risk decision making. 6. Emotion has ecological rationality.Chapter three includes six experiments. The results are as follows: First subjects involved in more automatic processing when under the positive information (positive emotion/positive framing) condition than under the negative condition and the mechanism of the change between automatic and controlled processing is implicit. This phenomenon indicates that emotion gained a function to regulate cognition in the process of adaptation to the environment. Second Positive affect increases, at least maintains the processing capacity as negative affect does. That is under the positive condition, not only can emotion save cognitive resources, but also it can help people to make decision correctly. Third, with the judgment task the emotion priming is implicit no matter it is in automatic or in controlled processing. Forth, When processing information subjects have negative bias and it is automatically activated and has deep root in biology. It's the result of adaptation and it is important for generation. Fifth, Emotion influences the mode of risk decision making: under the positive condition subjects have risk-seeking tendency whereas under the negative condition they take risk-avoidance position.Chapter 4 is a general discussion. Based on the results of this research and others, we claim that emotion has ecological rationality.