The effects of emotions on bounded rationality: A comment on Kaufman

Bruce Kaufman’s article (1999), “Emotional arousal as a source of bounded rationality”, objective is to present an additional source of bounded rationality, one that is not due to cognitive constraints, but to high emotional arousal. In doing so, Kaufman is following a long tradition of thinkers who have contrasted emotion with reason, claiming, for the most part, that emotions are a violent force hindering rational thinking. Emotion theorists (De Sousa, 1987, Zajonc, 1980), however, have recently come to challenge this dichotomy, and have offered an alternative standpoint. This paper, therefore, aims to challenge Kaufman’s unidimensional idea regarding the connection between high emotional arousal and decision making.