Wild side
Physically-attractive males increase men’s financial risk-taking
Eugene Chan
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research has examined how sexual opposite-sex stimuli impact people's choices and behaviors. However, it is largely unknown whether sexual same-sex stimuli also do so. This research reports an intriguing phenomenon: men who see attractive males take greater financial risks than those who do not. An evolution-based account is proffered and tested across four experiments. In evolutionary history, men have faced greater intrasexual competition in attracting women as a mating partner. Thus, when the average heterosexual man sees males who are more physically-attractive than he is, he is motivated to increase his desirability as a mating partner to women, prompting him to accrue money, and taking financial risks helps him to do so. This research concludes by discussing the implications of the present findings for men today who are constantly bombarded by not only sexual opposite- but also same-sex others, such as images that are commonly used in advertising.
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In Good Company: Managing Interpersonal Resources That Support Self-Regulation
Michelle vanDellen et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Effective self-regulation could involve not only managing internal resources for goal pursuit but also the often-fleeting interpersonal resources that can support goal attainment. In five studies, we test whether people who are effective self-regulators tend to position themselves in social environments that best afford self-regulatory success. Results indicated individual differences in self-regulatory effectiveness predict stronger preferences to spend time with, collaborate with, and be informed by others who were (a) high in self-control or self-regulation themselves or (b) instrumental to one’s goal pursuit. These preferences for supportive social environments appeared to be both targeted and strategic. Together, the findings suggest that effective self-regulation may involve positioning oneself in social environments that support goal pursuit and increase one’s chances of success.
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Self-Control Depletion and Narrative: Testing a Prediction of the TEBOTS Model
Benjamin Johnson, David Ewoldsen & Michael Slater
Media Psychology, Spring 2015, Pages 196-220
Abstract:
This study tests propositions derived from the larger notion that entertainment narratives offer the individual a means by which to alleviate the psychological demands of the self. Specifically, individuals in a state of reduced self-control were expected to experience greater enjoyment, audience response, transportation, and identification during narrative exposure. After a manipulation that depleted self-control resources, participants were exposed to a short story. They then reported their enjoyment and response to the story, as well as their transportation and identification during reading. Results supported the predictions, as enjoyment, audience response, and transportation were significantly greater in the depleted group. Identification showed a nonsignificant difference. Additionally, transportation was found to be a mediator of self-control depletion's effect on enjoyment. Subsequent analyses ruled out alternative mood management and emotion regulation explanations, demonstrating that depleted self-control resources, rather than affect or story valence, accounted for greater narrative engagement.
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Keith Welker, Stefan Goetz & Justin Carré
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous work indicates that facial width to height ratio predicts aggressive behavior, particularly when social status is low. The current research extends these findings with experimental evidence that status can moderate the relationship between facial structure and risk-taking. Male participants (N = 165) completed a measure of status, had their facial structure measured, were randomly assigned to win or lose a competition, and completed a behavioral measure of risk-taking. Facial structure predict risk-taking when individuals’ perceived status was low, but not high. Additionally, facial structure also predicted risk-taking in losers, but not winners of the competition. Individuals low in self-reported social status who lost the competition showed the highest relationship between facial structure and risk-taking. These findings provide evidence that FWHR is not always an indicator of risk-taking behaviors, but only when individuals perceive themselves as being low in status. These findings are interpreted from an ecological rationality perspective and suggest that risk-taking is adjusted appropriately to strive to meet social goals.
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Mirjam Tuk, Kuangjie Zhang & Steven Sweldens
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
A rich tradition in self-control research has documented the negative consequences of exerting self-control in 1 task for self-control performance in subsequent tasks. However, there is a dearth of research examining what happens when people exert self-control in multiple domains simultaneously. The current research aims to fill this gap. We integrate predictions from the most prominent models of self-control with recent neuropsychological insights in the human inhibition system to generate the novel hypothesis that exerting effortful self-control in 1 task can simultaneously improve self-control in completely unrelated domains. An internal meta-analysis on all 18 studies we conducted shows that exerting self-control in 1 domain (i.e., controlling attention, food consumption, emotions, or thoughts) simultaneously improves self-control in a range of other domains, as demonstrated by, for example, reduced unhealthy food consumption, better Stroop task performance, and less impulsive decision making. A subset of 9 studies demonstrates the crucial nature of task timing — when the same tasks are executed sequentially, our results suggest the emergence of an ego depletion effect. We provide conservative estimates of the self-control facilitation (d = |0.22|) as well as the ego depletion effect size (d = |0.17|) free of data selection and publication biases. These results (a) shed new light on self-control theories, (b) confirm recent claims that previous estimates of the ego depletion effect size were inflated due to publication bias, and (c) provide a blueprint for how to handle the power issues and associated file drawer problems commonly encountered in multistudy research projects.
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Does education affect risk aversion? Evidence from the British education reform
Seeun Jung
Applied Economics, Spring 2015, Pages 2924-2938
Abstract:
Individual risk attitudes are frequently used to predict decisions regarding education. However, using risk attitudes as a control variable for decisions about education has been criticized because of the potential for reverse causality. Causality between risk aversion and education is unclear, and disentangling the different directions it may run is difficult. In this study, we make the first attempt to investigate the causal effects of education on risk aversion by examining the British education reform of 1972, which increased the duration of compulsory schooling from age 15 to age 16. Using regression discontinuity design, we find that this additional year of schooling increases the level of risk aversion, which is contrary to previous findings in the literature, and we also find that this result is particularly strong for individuals with less education. This positive causal effect of education on risk aversion might alleviate concerns regarding the endogeneity/reverse causality issue when using risk aversion as an explanatory variable for decisions about education; the sign would remain credible because the coefficients are underestimated.
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Learning to Take Risks? The Effect of Education on Risk-Taking in Financial Markets
Sandra Black et al.
NBER Working Paper, March 2015
Abstract:
We investigate whether acquiring more education when young has long-term effects on risk-taking behavior in financial markets and whether the effects spill over to spouses and children. There is substantial evidence that more educated people are more likely to invest in the stock market. However, little is known about whether this is a causal effect of education or whether it arises from the correlation of education with unobserved characteristics. Using exogenous variation in education arising from a Swedish compulsory schooling reform in the 1950s and 1960s, and the wealth holdings of the population of Sweden in 2000, we estimate the effect of education on stock market participation and risky asset holdings. We find that an extra year of education increases stock market participation by about 2% for men but there is no evidence of any positive effect for women. More education also leads men to hold a greater proportion of their financial assets in stocks and other risky financial assets. We find no evidence of spillover effects from male schooling to the financial decisions of spouses or children.
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The Shadow of the Past: Financial Risk Taking and Negative Life Events
Alessandro Bucciol & Luca Zarri
Journal of Economic Psychology, June 2015, Pages 1–16
Abstract:
Based on data from the four 2004-2010 waves of the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we show that financial risk taking is significantly related to life-history negative events out of an individual’s control. Using observed portfolio decisions to proxy for risk taking, we find correlation with two of such individual-specific events: having been victim of a physical attack and (especially) the loss of a child are associated with lower and less frequent investments in risky assets, with an intensity similar to that of the beginning, in 2008, of a collectively experienced event such as the recent financial crisis. We also find evidence that the correlation of risk taking with a child loss is long-lasting, as opposed to the correlation with a physical attack that disappears after few years. Our analysis is more in favor of a preference-based – rather than a belief-based – explanation of the observed change in risk taking. Overall our findings indicate that the past, especially through the loss of a child, casts a long shadow that extends over individuals’ current decisions also within unrelated domains.