About swift defaults and sophisticated safety nets : aprocess perspective on fluency’s validity in judgment

Western societies usually cherish rational thought but distrust their feelings as sound basis of information. Contrary to this perception of feelings as being maladaptive, this contribution argues that fluency experiences generally allow for valid judgments and decision. For this argument, we focus on the processes underlying the use of fluency in judgment, in particular the two process steps of attribution and interpretation. We argue that these two process steps operate on swift defaults but are backed-up with sophisticated safety nets. Together, defaults and safety-nets allow for both efficient judgment formation and generally valid judgments. We conclude that it is time to have more faith in fluency as information when forming judgments.