Affect-Based Evaluation and Regulation as Mediators of Behavior : The Role of Affect in Risk Taking, Helping and Eating Patterns

In this chapter we apply a unified theoretical conceptualization (see also Andrade, 2005) that includes both informational and goal-directed properties of affect to three important substantive research streams (risk taking, helping, eating patterns). These behaviors have not previously been brought together to observe their common affective underpinnings. We propose that the integration of these two established affective mechanisms (where informational aspects are treated as affective evaluation (AE) and goal-directed aspects are treated as affect regulation (AR)) can help us account for many of the findings linking affect to observed differences in these behavioral domains