scholarly journals Boosting promotes advantageous risk-taking

Author(s):  
Tomas Folke ◽  
Giulia Bertoldo ◽  
Darlene D’Souza ◽  
Sonia Alì ◽  
Federica Stablum ◽  
...  

AbstractDue to the prevalence and importance of choices with uncertain outcomes, it is essential to establish what interventions improve risky decision-making, how they work, and for whom. Two types of low-intensity behavioural interventions are promising candidates: nudges and boosts. Nudges guide people to better decisions by altering how a choice is presented, without restricting any options or modifying the underlying payoff matrix. Boosts, on the other hand, teach people decision strategies that focus their attention on key aspects of the choice, which allows them to make more informed decisions. A recent study compared these two types of interventions and found that boosts worked better for risky choices aimed at maximising gains, whereas nudges worked best for choices aimed at minimising losses. Though intriguing, these findings could not be easily interpreted because of a limitation in the items used. Here we replicate that study, with an extended item set. We find that boosts work by promoting risk-taking when it is beneficial, whereas nudges have a consistent (lesser) impact, regardless of whether risk-taking is beneficial or not. These results suggest that researchers and policymakers should consider the base rate risk propensity of the target population when designing decision-support systems.

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey P. Slattery ◽  
Daniel C. Ganster

We tested the effects of positive and negative framing on risky decision making in a simulated managerial judgement task. Until now the extensive research on framing effects has been characterized by static contexts, explicit probabilities, and hypothetical gambles. In contrast we simulated a more realistic decision making environment in which individuals chose more or less risky goals in a complex dynamic task that featured uncertain outcomes and meaningful consequences. Decision makers chose a series of performance goals under conditions of either potential losses or gains and also received feedback about their goal attainment. Our results failed to replicateProspect Theory predictions about initial gain vs.loss framing typically found in static decision making contexts. In addition, we tested competing hypotheses derived from Prospect Theory and Quasi-Hedonic Editing (QHE) Theory about the effects of performance outcome feedback on subsequent decisions. Consistent with QHE Theory, decision makers who had failed to reach their goals set lower, less risky goals in subsequent decisions. Our findings illustrate the need for further risk taking research in environments that more closely resemble managerial decision making.


2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Kelley ◽  
Jeremy R. Athy ◽  
Timothy H. Cho ◽  
Brad Erickson ◽  
Melody King ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 760-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine A. Rimes ◽  
Janet Wingrove ◽  
Rona Moss-Morris ◽  
Trudie Chalder

Background: Cognitive behavioural interventions are effective in the treatment of chronic fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome (sometimes known as ME or CFS/ME) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Such interventions are increasingly being provided not only in specialist settings but in primary care settings such as Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services. There are no existing competences for the delivery of “low-intensity” or “high-intensity” cognitive behavioural interventions for these conditions. Aims: To develop “high-intensity” and “low-intensity” competences for cognitive behavioural interventions for chronic fatigue, CFS/ME and IBS. Method: The initial draft drew on a variety of sources including treatment manuals and other information from randomized controlled trials. Therapists with experience in providing cognitive behavioural interventions for CF, CFS/ME and IBS in research and clinical settings were consulted on the initial draft competences and their suggestions for minor amendments were incorporated into the final versions. Results: Feedback from experienced therapists was positive. Therapists providing low intensity interventions reported that the competences were also helpful in highlighting training needs. Conclusions: These sets of competences should facilitate the training and supervision of therapists providing cognitive behavioural interventions for chronic fatigue, CFS/ME and IBS. The competences are available online (see table of contents for this issue: http://journals.cambridge.org/jid_BCP) or on request from the first author.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 942-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison C. Simioni ◽  
Alain Dagher ◽  
Lesley K. Fellows

AbstractConverging evidence, including observations in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), suggests that dopamine plays a role in impulsivity. This multi-faceted construct includes considerations of both time and risk; determining how these more specific processes are affected by PD and dopaminergic treatment can inform neurobiological models. We examined the effects of PD and its treatment on temporal discounting and risky decision-making in a cohort of 23 mild-moderate PD patients and 20 healthy participants. Patients completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and a temporal discounting paradigm both on and off their usual dopamine replacement therapy. PD patients did not differ from controls in their initial risk-taking on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, but took progressively more risks across trials when on medication. A subset of patients and controls was tested again, 1.5–3 years later, to explore the effects of disease progression. On follow-up, baseline risk-taking diminished in patients, but the tendency to take increasing risks across trials persisted. Neither disease progression nor its treatment affected the temporal discounting rate. These findings suggest a different neural basis for temporal discounting and risk-taking, and demonstrate that risk-taking can be further decomposed into initial and trial-by-trial effects, with dopamine affecting only the latter. (JINS, 2012, 18, 1–10)


Author(s):  
Elizabeth D. Joseph ◽  
Don C. Zhang

Abstract. Risk-taking is a long-standing area of inquiry among psychologists and economists. In this paper, we examine the personality profile of risk-takers in two independent samples. Specifically, we examined the association between the Big Five facets and risk-taking propensity across two measures: The Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT) and the General Risk Propensity Scale (GRiPS). At the Big Five domain level, we found that extraversion and agreeableness were the primary predictors of risk-taking. However, facet-level analyses revealed that responsibility, a facet of conscientiousness, explained most of the total variance accounted for by the Big Five in both risk-taking measures. Based on our findings across two samples ( n = 764), we find that the personality profile of a risk-taker is extraverted, open to experiences, disagreeable, emotionally stable, and irresponsible. Implications for the risk measurement are discussed.


Author(s):  
Joshua B. Hurwitz

Increased real-time risk-taking under sleep loss could be marked by changes in risk perception or acceptance. Risk-perception processes are those involved in estimating real-time parameters such as the speeds and distances of hazardous objects. Risk-acceptance processes relate to response choices given risk estimates. Risk-taking under fatigue was studied using a simulated intersection-crossing driving task in which subjects decided when it was safe to cross an intersection as an oncoming car approached from the cross street. The subjects performed this task at 3-hour intervals over a 36-hour period without sleep. Results were modeled using a model of real-time risky decision making that has perceptual components that process speed, time and distance information, and a decisional component for accepting risk. Results showed that varying a parameter for the decisional component across sessions best accounted for variations in performance relating to time of day.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy T. Do ◽  
Paul B. Sharp ◽  
Eva H. Telzer

Heightened risk taking in adolescence has long been attributed to valuation systems overwhelming the deployment of cognitive control. However, this explanation of why adolescents engage in risk taking is insufficient given increasing evidence that risk-taking behavior can be strategic and involve elevated cognitive control. We argue that applying the expected-value-of-control computational model to adolescent risk taking can clarify under what conditions control is elevated or diminished during risky decision-making. Through this lens, we review research examining when adolescent risk taking might be due to—rather than a failure of—effective cognitive control and suggest compelling ways to test such hypotheses. This effort can resolve when risk taking arises from an immaturity of the control system itself, as opposed to arising from differences in what adolescents value relative to adults. It can also identify promising avenues for channeling cognitive control toward adaptive outcomes in adolescence.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivy N. Defoe ◽  
Judith Semon Dubas ◽  
Daniel Romer

Surveys concur that adolescents disproportionately engage in many real-world risk behaviors, compared with children and adults. Recently researchers have employed laboratory risky decision-making tasks to replicate this apparent heightened adolescent risk-taking. This review builds on the main findings of the first meta-analysis of such age differences in risky decision-making in the laboratory. Overall, although adolescents engage in more risky decision-making than adults, adolescents engage in risky decision-making equal to children. However, adolescents take fewer risks than children on tasks that allow the option of opting out of taking a risk. To reconcile findings on age differences in risk-taking in the real-world versus the laboratory, an integrative framework merges theories on neuropsychological development with ecological models that emphasize the importance of risk exposure in explaining age differences in risk-taking. Policy insights and recent developments are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Calcutt ◽  
Darby Proctor ◽  
Sarah M. Berman ◽  
Frans B. M. de Waal

Social risk is a domain of risk in which the costs, benefits, and uncertainty of an action depend on the behavior of another individual. Humans overvalue the costs of a socially risky decision when compared with that of purely economic risk. Here, we played a trust game with 8 female captive chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) to determine whether this bias exists in one of our closest living relatives. A correlation between an individual’s social- and nonsocial-risk attitudes indicated stable individual variation, yet the chimpanzees were more averse to social than nonsocial risk. This indicates differences between social and economic decision making and emotional factors in social risk taking. In another experiment using the same paradigm, subjects played with several partners with whom they had varying relationships. Preexisting relationships did not impact the subjects’ choices. Instead, the apes used a tit-for-tat strategy and were influenced by the outcome of early interactions with a partner.


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