Recognize the Pervasive Impact of Emotions

What consumer task would we expect to involve less emotion than would making financial decisions? And for what job task would a worker depending on emotion be more likely to hurt than would screening loan applications? It is of note, then, that researchers at SP Jain School of Global Management, The University of Western Australia, University of Budapest, University of Southern Queensland, and Griffith University show evidence that loan officers’ decision making is influenced by emotions.
     In one study, all participants held an MBA in Finance and Accounting and had worked for at least two years in a business setting. They seemed qualified to evaluate loan applications.
     Each participant was given applications and asked to indicate how willing they’d be to approve the loan. The application’s financial information included the number of loans the firm had taken out in the past, how many of these loans were paid back on time, the judged ability of the firm’s cash flow to cover payments on the potential loan, and the value of the proposed loan collateral. These indicators were considered sufficient for the participants to rationally evaluate each application.
     Wait, there was more: In the top right corner of each loan application was a small image which contained no financial information, but had been shown in prior studies to portray a single emotion such as joy, fear, or anger.
     Analyses of the data collected from all this showed that loan applications including an emotionally positive image were more likely to be approved. Further, this effect was stronger for the male than for the female participants. The researchers attribute this gender difference to findings from past studies that men depend more than do women on visual information in decision making.
     A companion study, with a different set of people, measured each participant’s emotional reactions as they viewed the loan application. The reaction was measured by the participant’s self-report and also via galvanic skin response, which is a physiological indicator of emotion.
     Here, the men had higher loan approval likelihood for applications with positively-valenced imagery than did the women. For applications with negatively-valenced imagery, there was no significant gender difference.
     Together, the studies indicate that emotional reactions influence decisions in realms where non-emotional analyses might be expected. It also seems that images which trigger emotion can accentuate this effect, especially in men.
     Recognize the significant role of emotions in persuasion and use imagery for effectiveness.

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Image at top of post based on photo by Karola G from Pexels