Emotion and Reasoning

Isabelle Blanchette is Professeure Titulaire at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada. Her research examines the interaction between affective and cognitive processes, with a particular focus on the influence of emotion on reasoning, and the influence of cognitive processes on emotional learning.

‘Isabelle Blanchette has called this her ‘dream book’ and rightly so. This is a fascinating volume that sheds new light on the age-old dichotomy between emotion and reasoning. It debunks the popular notion that emotions always undermine our rationality and shows a much more nuanced view on how and when emotions affect our reasoning. Blanchette’s expertise is reflected in the outstanding group of authors contributing to this volume, providing excellent state of the art overviews. This book is a must for students and scholars in both the field of cognition and emotion.’ - Agneta H. Fischer, Professor in Emotion and Affective Processes, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands‘Emotions can influence reasoning in a myriad ways, good, bad, and just plain perplexing. This milestone book documents a great many of these influences, in clinical as well as non-clinical populations, on the basis of biological as well as behavioral measures. Anyone interested in emotion and rationality would do well to peruse this book.’ – Jean-François Bonnefon, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France ‘This outstanding collection of papers demonstrates how recent research undermines the unquestioned view that emotion simply impairs "proper" reasoning. The result is a nuanced view of how emotion influences cognition via a multitude of pathways, some of which actually enhance reasoning.’ – Luiz Pessoa, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, USA‘Does emotion lead to faulty reasoning? The simple and undisputed answer to this question was, for centuries, yes. This exciting volume shows that such a simple answer is wrong. Indeed, as the authoritative cast of contributors to this volume convincingly demonstrates, the influence of emotion on reasoning is much more complicated, nuanced and interesting. This exciting volume is a must read for psychologist, philosophers, and anyone interested in a cutting-edge answer to the age old question of how emotion impacts reasoning.’ - Jeffrey R. Huntsinger, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, USA

• 1.Introduction I. Blanchette 2. Better safe than sorry: Threat-confirming reasoning bias in anxiety disorders P. de Jong, M. Vroling 3. Emotion, reasoning, and psychopathology A. Gangemi, F. Mancini, P.N. Johnson-Laird 4. Emotions, beliefs, and psychopathology H. Berenbaum, M. T. Boden 5. Conflict, arousal, and logical gut feelings. W. de Neys 6. Emotion as an argumentative strategy: How induced mood affects the evaluation of neutral and inflammatory slippery slope arguments S. Quraishi, M. Oaksford 7.Reasoning and emotion in the body I. Blanchette, J. Amato 8. Pupil size reflects cognition emotion interactions in analogical reasoning K. Prehn, E. van der Meer 9. What is the role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in emotional influences on reason? A. Nicolle, V. Goel