Into the night
Eveningness Is Associated with Higher Risk-Taking, Independent of Sex and Personality
Davide Ponzi, Claire Wilson & Dario Maestripieri
Psychological Reports, December 2014, Pages 932-947
Abstract:
This study tested the hypotheses that eveningness is associated with higher risk-taking propensities across different domains of risk and that this association is not the result of sex differences or confounding covariation with particular personality traits. Study participants were 172 men and women between 20 and 40 years of age. Surveys assessed chronotype, domain-specific risk-taking and risk-perception, and Big Five personality dimensions. Eveningness was associated with greater general risk-taking in the specific domains of financial, ethical, and recreational decision making. Although risk-taking was associated with both risk perception and some personality dimensions, eveningness predicted risk-taking independent of these factors. Higher risk-taking propensities among evening types may be causally or functionally linked to their propensities for sensation- and novelty-seeking, impulsivity, and sexual promiscuity.
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2D:4D Digit Ratio Predicts Delay of Gratification in Preschoolers
Sergio Da Silva, Bruno Moreira & Newton Da Costa
PLoS ONE, December 2014
Abstract:
We replicate the Stanford marshmallow experiment with a sample of 141 preschoolers and find a correlation between lack of self-control and 2D:4D digit ratio. Children with low 2D:4D digit ratio are less likely to delay gratification. Low 2D:4D digit ratio may indicate high fetal testosterone. If this hypothesis is true, our finding means high fetal testosterone children are less likely to delay gratification.
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Deciding for Others Reduces Loss Aversion
Ola Andersson et al.
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study risk taking on behalf of others, both when choices involve losses and when they do not. A large-scale incentivized experiment with subjects randomly drawn from the Danish population is conducted. We find that deciding for others reduces loss aversion. When choosing between risky prospects for which losses are ruled out by design, subjects make the same choices for themselves as for others. In contrast, when losses are possible, we find that the two types of choices differ. In particular, we find that subjects who make choices for themselves take less risk than those who decide for others when losses loom. This finding is consistent with an interpretation of loss aversion as a bias in decision making driven by emotions and that these emotions are reduced when making decisions for others.
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Alex Bertrams et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Colors have been found to affect psychological functioning. Empirical evidence suggests that, in test situations, brief perceptions of the color red or even the word “red” printed in black ink prime implicit anxious responses and consequently impair cognitive performance. However, we propose that this red effect depends on people’s momentary capacity to exert control over their prepotent responses (i.e., self-control). In three experiments (Ns = 66, 78, and 130), first participants’ self-control strength was manipulated. Participants were then primed with the color or word red versus gray prior to completing an arithmetic test or an intelligence test. As expected, self-control strength moderated the red effect. While red had a detrimental effect on performance of participants with depleted self-control strength (ego depletion), it did not affect performance of participants with intact self-control strength. We discuss implications of the present findings within the current debate on the robustness of priming results.
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Wendy Slutske et al.
Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, December 2014, Pages 1177-1189
Abstract:
The premise that an association between an earlier age of gambling initiation and the later development of disordered gambling is causal has not yet been empirically examined. The current study used a multilevel discordant twin design to examine the nature of this association. Participants were 3,546 same-sex twins (mean age = 37.7 years) from the Australian Twin Registry who completed a telephone interview that included an extensive assessment of gambling and related behaviors. Multilevel models were employed to estimate individual (within-twin-pair comparison) and family level (between-twin-pair comparison) effects, as well as the cross-level interaction between these effects. Family-level effects (genetic or environmental factors shared by family members) of age of gambling initiation robustly predicted later adult gambling frequency and disorder; the evidence for individual-level effects (unique factors not shared by family members, including a potentially causal effect of earlier age of gambling onset) was less robust. The results of this study suggest that the relation between earlier age of gambling initiation and later gambling involvement and disorder is primarily noncausal; efforts to delay the onset of gambling among young people may not necessarily reduce the number who later go on to develop gambling-related problems.
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The Ability to Follow Your Gut: Emotion-Understanding Ability Leverages Feelings to Avoid Risk
Jeremy Yip, Stéphane Côté & Dana Rose Carney
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, October 2014
Abstract:
Emotional intelligence facilitates decision-making about risk. We propose that emotionally intelligent individuals make better decisions because they adaptively use their immediate feelings as a source of information about different decision options. We examine whether emotion-understanding ability (a primary dimension of emotional intelligence) helps individuals rely on their skin-conductance responses as signals about the potential danger associated with risky decision options. By correctly identifying the source of their skin-conductance responses, individuals with higher emotion-understanding ability use their feelings as relevant information to avoid choosing risky decision options. As predicted, we find that individuals with higher emotion-understanding ability exhibited a stronger association between skin-conductance responses and avoidance of risky options in the Iowa Gambling Task, relative to individuals with lower emotion-understanding ability. We also find that emotional intelligence enhances decision-making independently of cognitive intelligence. These results suggest that emotional intelligence enables individuals to use their feelings adaptively to guide decisions about risk.
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Priming Memories of Past Wins Induces Risk Seeking
Elliot Ludvig, Christopher Madan & Marcia Spetch
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
People are often risk averse when making decisions under uncertainty. When those decisions are based on past experience, people necessarily rely on their memories. Thus, what is remembered at the time of the choice should influence risky choice. We tested this hypothesis by priming memory for past outcomes in a simple risky-choice task. In the task, people repeatedly chose between a safe option and a risky option that paid off with a larger or smaller reward with a 50/50 chance. Some trials were preceded by a priming cue that was previously paired with one of the outcomes. We found that priming cues associated with wins caused people to become risk seeking, whereas priming cues associated with relative losses had little effect. These results suggest that people can be induced to be more risk seeking through subtle reminders of previous winning experiences.
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Sarah Feldstein Ewing, Jon Houck & Angela Bryan
Addictive Behaviors, forthcoming
Abstract:
While many have identified the important role of the developing brain in youth risk behavior, few have examined the relationship between salient cognitive factors (response inhibition) and different types of real-world adolescent health risk behaviors (substance use and risky sex) within the same sample of youth. We therefore sought to examine these relationships with 95 high-risk youth (ages 14-18; M age = 16.29 years). We examined the relationship between blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response to an fMRI-based cognitive task designed to assess response inhibition (Go/NoGo) and past month risk behavior (number of substance use days; number of unprotected sex days). For this sample of youth, we found significant negative correlations between past month substance use and response inhibition within the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and right insula (uncorrected p < .001; extent threshold > 10 voxels). In addition, in the same contrast, we found significant positive correlations between past month risky sex and activation within the right IFG and left middle occipital gyrus (uncorrected p < .001; extent threshold > 10 voxels). These results suggest the particular relevance of these regions in this compelling, albeit slightly different pattern of response for adolescent substance use and risky sex.
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Not really the same: Computerized and real lotteries in decision making research
Aileen Oeberst, Susanne Haberstroh & Timo Gnambs
Computers in Human Behavior, March 2015, Pages 250–257
Abstract:
Computer technologies are routinely employed for many experimental procedures in decision-making research. Because computer-supported conduct has been shown to bias certain types of measures, the study evaluated the impact of computerized presentation of lotteries on risky choice tasks. A sample of 187 German undergraduates (147 women) participated in an experiment on financial decision-making. After presenting two types of lotteries participants had to choose between the risky and the conservative lottery. The experiment followed a 3 (presentation mode) × 2 (type of payoff) factorial design. Results indicated that the risky lottery was chosen more frequently when the lotteries were presented on computer as compared to real lotteries where participants drew balls from a closed box. Differences in risk perceptions mediated the mode effect on choice behavior. Moreover, risk taking decreased when the monetary payoff was made salient. Hence, computerized sampling and artificial payoffs (e.g., points) increased risky choices. Our findings therefore suggest that computer-supported sampling procedures in decision-making research might overestimate risk-taking behavior as compared to risk-taking in applied practice (i.e. in non-virtual sampling scenarios using monetary payoffs).