316 Understanding Emotional Decision Making
next appointment, spent almost a half-hour enumerating reasons for and against each of the two
dates: previous engagements, proximity to other engagements, possible meteorological conditions.
The patient even went through “a tiresome cost-benefi t analysis, an endless outlining and fruitless
comparison of options and possible consequences.” The same patient showed no emotional reac-
tions to grisly pictures, although he described them as “disgusting.” Despite the fact the patient
had an intellectual understanding of emotional states, he had no emotional experiences, and as a
consequence, had great diffi culty making even the simplest of decisions.^67
The Antecedents of Emotional Decision Making
Audience Goals and Values
At the cognitive level, the antecedents of the audience’s emotions are their personal goals and val-
ues.^68 Audience goals tend to be specifi c and short term, like the goal to exercise fi ve times a week;
audience values, such as freedom, security, and honesty, are more abstract and slower to change.
Because emotions are evaluations of stimuli as they relate to a person’s goals and values, audience
members would not experience emotions without them.^69
Negative emotions result from threats to the audience’s goals and values. Positive emotionsresult from attainment of their goals and values.^70 The strength of an audience member’s emotional
response to a situation is determined both by how relevant that situation is to their goals and values,
and by how invested they are in those goals and values.^71 Table 7.1 indicates the values of Ameri-
cans in different age groups. Although all three age groups rank freedom and self-respect among
their top fi ve values, 20-year-olds tend to value freedom and happiness most highly. Older people
tend to value family security and world peace most highly.^72 In the political realm, the audience’s
values predict a broad range of policy preferences.^73 An audience member’s commitment to the
value of equality, for example, predicts their attitudes toward many social policies, including welfare
programs and government provision of jobs.^74
Different Goals and Values, Different Emotions
Different audience members can have different emotional reactions to the same stimulus.^75 The
Greek philosopher Epictetus said much the same thing almost 2,000 years ago when he observed
that people are not disturbed by things but rather by their view of them. An old story illustrates
this point. It describes “three persons of much the same age and temperament” traveling in the
same carriage who were told of the sudden death of another. The fi rst person was not affected;
the second started to cry; the third smiled. Why? The fi rst person had never heard of the deceased.
The second person was the sister of the deceased. The third person was a long-time rival of the
TABLE 7.1 Top Five Values of Three Age Groups
Rank 20-year-olds 30-year-olds 60-year-olds
1 Freedom Family security World peace
2 Happiness World peace Family security
3 Wisdom Freedom Freedom
4 Self-respect Self-respect National security
5 Love Wisdom Self-respect
Source: Adapted from Rokeach (1973)