Affect monitoring and the primacy of feelings in judgment

Multidisciplinary evidence suggests that people often make evaluative judgments by monitoring their feelings toward the target. This article examines, in the context of moderately complex and consciously accessible stimuli, the judgmental properties of consciously monitored feelings. Results from four studies show that, compared to cold, reason-based assessments of the target, the conscious monitoring of feelings provides judgmental responses that are (a) potentially faster, (b) more stable and consistent across individuals, and importantly (c) more predictive of the number and valence of people's thoughts. These findings help explain why the monitoring of feelings is an often diagnostic pathway to evaluation in judgment and decision making.