Why Emotions Drive 95% of Our Decisions (And How Smart Leaders Use This)
Do you consider yourself a rational decision maker? If you're like most people, you probably overestimate how logical your choices really are. The truth might surprise you—and it certainly surprised me when I discovered it firsthand.
The Volvo Story: When Logic Meets Emotion
A few years ago, I bought a Volvo SUV. It was the perfect rational choice—excellent safety ratings, practical features, everything a smart buyer should want. I was so proud of this logical decision that for months afterward, given the slightest opening, I would regale family and friends with fun Volvo safety facts.
I remained convinced of my rational choice until one day, driving with my husband, we saw a woman in a little red convertible. "She looks like she's having fun," he said. "I think you'd like a car like that someday"
Instantly, I felt like my chest was in a vise. And I knew exactly why, and it called into question my supposedly rational decision.
The Real Story Behind My Decision
When I was 12, my parents moved us from our little house in town where I could walk to see all of my friends, to an isolated acreage where I could walk to see exactly no one. I was moping around one day, as preteens do, and my mom offered to drive me into town to see one of my friends. I jumped at the chance.
So, she loaded me and my 6 year-old brother into her little red car, and off we went. It couldn’t have been more than 30 seconds after she dropped me off that my friend and I heard the screech of brakes and the gut-wrenching sound of metal on metal impact.
My sweet friend yelled “Yay, car accident” (kids are awkward) we raced outside. And as I was running down her front steps, I turned and saw what was left of my mom’s little red car, smashed against a full-sized pickup truck. I can remember running down the street preparing myself for the worst. It didn’t look like anyone could have survived that impact.
This story has a happy ending. My mom and brother walked away from that accident.The little red car actually saved them.
So why, thirty years later, did I still feel that tightness in my chest when I saw that woman in the little red convertible? Because emotion beats logic. Every time.
The Science Behind Emotional Decision-Making
That’s just one story. But research backs this up. Baba Shiv at Stanford University found that 90-95% of our decisions are emotional, not rational. Even more fascinating: after we make our emotional choice, we scramble to find facts that support it, convincing ourselves we made a logical decision.
This applies to everything from car purchases to software subscriptions to career changes. We feel first, then rationalize later.
The Marketing Implications
Smart companies know that if you’re being asked to achieve goals like increasing customer loyalty, building stickiness or increasing referrals, you're really being asked to drive behavior. You can do this in two ways:
The uncomfortable way: Bombard people with messages to do things they don't want to do
The empowering way: Create pathways that feel smooth and natural
If you’re like most people, you’re thinking that the second approach sounds ideal in a perfect world, but also complex, like you'd need an army of PhD psychologists. But there's actually a simple three-step formula that works every time.
The Three-Step Formula for Emotional Marketing
Step 1: "I See You"
The most interesting topic to most people? Themselves.
Get people's attention by talking about them, not your product. Most brands get this wrong—they focus on how great their product is instead of making customers feel understood.
Try: "Worried about interest rates? So are we." This creates an instant connection.
Step 2: Build Trust with the Basics
Find the promise that brought someone to you and deliver on it impeccably. Whether they clicked an ad, opened an email, or heard a recommendation, something got them there. Honor that implicit promise.
If you can't deliver impeccably on your promise, that's not your message—find a new one.
Step 3: Introduce New Pathways
Now you can open up possibilities using the emotional engines of behavior: fear and hope.
Fear works great for short-term behaviors—impulse purchases, immediate actions. If you've ever bought something online and barely remembered ordering it when it arrived, that was your amygdala (fight-or-flight brain) making a fear-based decision.
But fear fails at driving long-term behaviors like customer loyalty, retention, and referrals. Anyone who’s ever started a gym membership because their doctor scared them into it, and stopped going after a couple of weeks knows this well.
Hope excels at long-term behaviors. Research by Dr. Shane Lopez at Gallup found that hope—not intelligence—determines who can make quick decisions to move their lives forward. And the three-step process above excels at driving long-term behaviors because behind the scenes, it is building hope.
Hope in Action: The ChatGPT Example
If you want to see this in action, just watch how ChatGPT handles vulnerable questions—the kind you'd only ask a good friend:
It validates you ("I see you")
It answers your direct question (builds trust with basics)
It offers new avenues to explore (introduces pathways)
This creates stickiness not just because it's smart, but because it makes people feel hopeful and capable. And when people feel capable, they act.
The Fundamental Truth
Whether based on fear or hope, emotion is the foundation of almost all decision-making. We don't move people with facts—that's a myth. We move them by making them feel seen, supported, and ready for what's next.
The next time you're crafting a message to move your audience, remember: their emotions are already driving their decisions. Your job isn't to fight that reality—it's to work with it in a way that feels empowering rather than manipulative.
Ready to create marketing that connects on an emotional level? Start with the three-step formula: I see you, build trust with the basics, introduce new pathways. Your customers—and your conversion rates—will thank you.