About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about how emotions can influence decision making, focusing in particular on: (i) the nature of our day-to-day decision making being emotionally driven; (ii) a scientific explanation for the term ‘trust your gut’; (iii) the negative influence of emotions, whereby they sometimes convince us of a negative possibility, even in the face of tangible benefits; (iv) the increased weight that emotional responses can hold in events, causing individuals to feel or behave in an irrational manner; (v) research findings that negative emotions narrow our cognitive processes, whereas positive emotions widen them; (vi) a result of the narrowing of cognitive processes by negative emotions being that we are often better able to concentrate on a task when it evokes negative emotions; (vii) the fact that anger can reduce our ability to assess risk.

About the lecturer

Dr Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist, author and honorary research associate in the Centre for Medical Education at Cardiff University. Dr Burnett’s research interests are in neuroscience, science communication and psychology. Some of Dr Burnett’s recent books include Psycho-Logical (2019) and Why Your Parents Are Driving You Up The Wall And What To Do About It (2019).