Merely anticipating a future sad event may motivate consumers to “accumulate (i.e., bank) happiness” in order to enhance their ability to cope with the anticipated sadness later— a phenomenon that we call banking happiness. People bank happiness because of the lay theory that happiness is...

Previous research has shown that processing fluency leads to higher aesthetic pleasure. We propose that the effect of fluency on aesthetic pleasure relates to fluency’s role in reducing uncertainty. In other words, uncertainty is a drive state that produces pleasure only once it is resolved....

Uncertainty is an unavoidable part of human life. How do states of uncertainty influence the way people make decisions? We advance the proposition that states of uncertainty increase the reliance on affective inputs in judgments and decisions. In accord with this proposition, results from six...

Eight studies reveal an intriguing phenomenon: individuals who have higher trust in their feelings can predict the outcomes of future events better than individuals with lower trust in their feelings. This emotional oracle effect was found across a variety of prediction domains, including (a)...

Eight studies reveal an intriguing phenomenon: Individuals who have higher trust in their feelings can predict the outcomes of future events better than individuals with lower trust in their feelings. This emotional oracle effect was found in a variety of domains, including (a) the 2008 U.S....

Eight studies reveal an intriguing phenomenon: individuals who have higher trust in their feelings can predict the outcomes of future events better than individuals with lower trust in their feelings. This emotional oracle effect was found across a variety of prediction domains, including (a)...