Affect as Information

Ask a man why he dislikes a proposal, and he will give you reasons. Often the honest answer is shorter: he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

This is the mind's favourite shortcut. Instead of examining the thing, it consults the feeling — as if the mood were a report on the world. Feelings are quick and cheap, so the mind uses them as evidence. "How do I feel about it?" quietly replaces "What do I know about it?"

The flaw is obvious once stated: a feeling reports the weather inside you, not the facts outside you. Interviewers rate candidates lower on rainy days. The candidate did not change. The sky did.

The defence is one pause. When a judgment arrives too quickly and too comfortably, ask: is this information about the thing, or information about my afternoon? Both are data. Only one is evidence.