Chapter 2
The psychology of decision-making
“Cognition by itself cannot produce action; to influence behavior, the cognitive system must operate via the affective system.
COLIN CAMERER ET AL., BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMISTS1
Although it’s comforting to believe that we make decisions from a rational place, in recent years mounting evidence to the contrary has disabused many of us of this notion. A considerable number of studies and theories suggest that our decision-making can in fact be significantly influenced and biased by our emotional processes.
One of the most widely cited of these is the semantic marker hypothesis, a mechanism proposed by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio which provides evidence that certain sub-cortical regions in the brain contribute ...
Get Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
