Conference: The Role of Affect and Emotion in Decision Making (February 2003)

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This workshop (February 7-9, 2003) focuses on an area of increasing interest to scholars in economics and decision science - the attempt to connect research on cognitive neuroscience with research on decision making. This area, which has been called "neuro-economics" is very much in its infancy. The catalyst for the huge amount of interest in the area in the last few years was the publication of "Descartes' Error," a book by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio demonstrating that damage to parts of the brain involved in processing emotional information can impair decision making. This finding has been of interest to researchers for two main reasons - first, it suggests that the widespread belief that emotion interferes with effective decision making is wrong. Second, it suggests that insights into decision making and economic behavior can be obtained by relating such behavior to neurological phenomena. The proposed workshop is the third in a series at the University of Arizona that bring together scholars working on topics in decision science, emotion and neuroscience. The particants include 3 of the 12 researchers who participated in the "Behavioral Economics" symposium at the Nobel award ceremony this year (Kahneman, Slovic, Smith).