Decision making as coping

This article reviews a model of emotional trade-off difficulty in decision making. The model argues that decision makers are motivated to cope with the negative emotion associated with decision-processing operations, notably emotion generated by explicit trade-offs between highly valued attributes. The article begins to explore implications of this model for patient decision making in the cancer control domain. For instance, the model points to emotional reactions to decisions as both a cost and a barrier in the move toward greater patient participation in health care decision making.