Emotion regulation and decision making

Recent years have seen a notable increase in interest in examining the processes that underlie human decision making, with one of the more energetic new directions being that of how emotions can impact our deci- sions and choices (Sanfey, 2007). Though a relatively recent development, this research area has already uncovered some compelling findings with regard to the emotional and social factors involved in how we make deci- sions. Indeed, it is now commonly argued that the principal way in which actual decision-making behavior deviates from the choices prescribed by economic models of decision making may be in large part due to emotional factors that weigh heavily on our actual decision but are seldom taken into account by the standard models. Hence, greater knowledge of the exact role that emotions play in decision making is invalu- able in building complete, accurate, models of choice.