Affect Heuristic

The affect heuristic is a mental heuristic in which judgments of risk and benefit are driven by the emotional valence — the "affect" — associated with the target. Introduced by Paul Slovic and colleagues as an extension of the heuristics-and-biases program, the affect heuristic predicts that people judge activities they feel positively about as both low-risk and high-benefit, and activities they feel negatively about as both high-risk and low-benefit, regardless of the actual statistical evidence. The effect is robust across domains, from nuclear power to vaccination to genetic engineering, and it challenges the assumption that risk perception is primarily a cognitive process. The affect heuristic is particularly relevant to understanding how fear appeals and emotional framing shape public policy.