Emotional choice theory (also referred to as the "logic of affect") is a social scientific action model to explain human decision-making.
[1] Markwica suggests that political and social scientists have generally employed two main action models to explain human decision-making: On the one hand, rational choice theory (also referred to as the "logic of consequences") views people as homo economicus and assumes that they make decisions to maximize benefit and to minimize cost.
While norms and identities are important long-term factors in the decision process, emotions function as short-term, essential motivators for change.
Markwica concludes that emotions play a significant role in shaping decision-making processes: "They inform us what we like and what we loathe, what is good and bad for us, and whether we do right or wrong.
[1]: 58 The theory draws on insights from sociology to delineate how actors’ norms about the appropriate experience and expression of affect shape their emotions.
[1]: 100 It then employs a combination of qualitative sentiment analysis and an interpretive approach to identify these emotion signs in self-reports (e.g., autobiographies or statements in interviews) and observer reports (e.g., eyewitness accounts).
Sentiment analysis is a technique for uncovering emotion terms in texts, i.e., written words that were originally noted down by an author or expressed by a speaker.
Constitutive analysis, on the other hand, fails to capture the dynamic character of emotions, because it assumes a static relationship between properties and their component parts.
The idea is to first establish the local meanings of emotion norms and to then move beyond singular causality to attain a higher level of analytical generality.
For example, political scientist Dustin Tingley (Harvard University) considers the model "an intellectual tour de force" that "should be required reading for anyone in the social sciences who is doing applied research that features a role for emotions."
"[4]: 8 International relations scholar Neta Crawford (Boston University) recognizes that emotional choice theory seeks to "dramatically revise, if not overturn," our understanding of decision-making.
For instance, the theory’s focus on the psychology and emotions of individual actors makes it difficult to account for group dynamics in decision-making processes such as groupthink, in her opinion.
[5]: 671–672 Similarly, Matthew Costlow (National Institute of Public Policy) criticizes that the model does not adequately take into account how mental illnesses and personality disorders may influence certain emotions and people’s ability to regulate them.
He notes that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill suffered from depression, for example, which presumably affected their emotions and, hence, their decision-making.
She deems it an "important contribution" to the literature on decision-making, which can "easily serve as a foundational template for other scholars wishing to expand exploration into other emotions or other areas of application.
[8]: 82 Political scientist Ignas Kalpokas (Vytautas Magnus University) regards emotional choice theory as "a long-overdue and successful attempt to conceptualize the logic of affect."
He highlights the theory’s "real subversive and disruptive potential" and considers it "of particular necessity in today’s environment when traditional political models based on rationality and deliberation are crumbling in the face of populism, resurgent emotion-based identities, and post-truth."
[9][10]: 1410 According to international relations scholar Keren Yarhi-Milo (Columbia University), the theory "proves a useful, additional approach to understanding the decision-making process of leaders."
She notes that the model’s focus on the inductive reconstruction of the cultural context of emotions puts a "significant burden" on analysts who apply it, because they need access to evidence that is typically not easy to come by.