The Slave of the Passions: Experiencing Problems and Selecting Solutions

Abstract

This article argues that problem solving is motivated by feelings. The proposition is made that a person will experience a problem and engage in problem solving only if the person is in a state that feels aversive or if a mentally represented state becomes a goal by eliciting feelings more pleasurable than those that currently dominate. When people solve problems, the criteria they use in evaluating alternative solutions cannot in themselves motivate the choosing of an alternative. On evaluation, each alternative elicits a feeling that can be placed somewhere on a hedonic continuum. Whether rational or irrational, and even if the problem solver regards another alternative as correct, the alternative that produces the best feeling will always be selected as the solution to the problem.