The Relationship Between Emotion And Choice Deferral:a Study Based On The PAD Emotion Model

The research of choice deferral mainly focused on the pleasure-displeasure dimension of emotion, but seldom examined the other two dimensions of emotion in the past. Based on the PAD emotional state model, this study explored the role of the pleasure-displeasure, dominance-submissiveness and arousal-nonarousal dimensions in the choice deferral through four experiments. The results showed that, in addition to the Pleasure dimension, the Dominance also played an important role in the generation of choice deferral, the relationship between the Arousal and choice deferral was smaller.The first three experiments (experiments1:the emotional trade-off difficulty, experiment2:the readability of the options and experimental3:the relative attraction of options) used the current characteristics of the options to manipulate the emotional experience of subjects. In the three conditions, choosing deferral can make it useful to get rid of the displeasure or submissiveness induced by the decision tasks, so experiments1and2found that in the displeased and submissive conditions, the subjects were more inclined to delay their choice, but in the first two experiments the Pleasure and the Dominance was highly related. The third experiment used the relative attraction of the options to keep the degree of pleasure constant and manipulated the different degree of dominance. The results showed that the Dominance still mediated the generation of choice for deferral.The fourth experiment used the whole decision-making situation, rather than the characteristics of the options to manipulate the Dominance. The results showed that, in the submissive context, subjects were more inclined to choose among the current options. It may be because in this case, choosing deferral wasn’t an effective way to get out of the submissive decision-making context for the individuals. On the contrary, choosing deferral would make the subjects tried in the submissive decision-making context for a long time.Finally, the study also showed that the present of delay option increased the degree of the Pleasure and the Dominance, and the actual choice of the delay option could mediate the effect of the experimental manipulations on retrospective emotion.