How does alexithymia affect decision-making?
There is mounting evidence that our emotions are crucial to beneficial decision-making, and that alexithymics seem to be deficient in this central component of emotional intelligence. There are two main reasons for this. First, emotions are appetitive motivations: they play a crucial role in determining our goals and protecting our interests. If we cannot interpret their messages, we fail to incorporate this information into our decisions. Hence alexithymics tend to make decisions for practical reasons rather than sentimental or hedonistic reasons, and lead joyless and unrewarding lives. Second, the affect system uses a different form of information processing than the intellectual system. It is more holistic and distributed and specializes in quick and dirty reactions to thoughts about our personal welfare or interests. By contrast, the intellect progresses from one logical step to another, but it takes a lot of time and processing power and is liable to overlook important information
