Regret-Based Decision-Making Style Acts as a Dispositional Factor in Risky Choices

2018 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
pp. 1412-1431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Lauriola ◽  
Angelo Panno ◽  
Joshua A. Weller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Risk Behaviors ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Factorial Structure ◽  
Balloon Analogue Risk Task ◽  
Risk Taking Behaviors ◽  
Over Time

People who anticipate the potential regret of one’s decisions are believed to act in a more risk-averse manner and, thus, display fewer risk-taking behaviors across many domains. We conducted two studies to investigate whether individual differences in regret-based decision-making (a) reflect a unitary cognitive-style dimension, (b) are stable over time, and (c) predict later risk-taking behavior. In Study 1, 332 participants completed a regret-based decision-making style scale (RDS) to evaluate its psychometric qualities. In Study 2, participants ( N = 119) were tested on two separate occasions to assess the association between RDS and risk-taking. At Time 1, participants completed the RDS, as well as trait measures of anxiety and depression. One month later, they completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and state mood (Positive/Negative affect) scales. The RDS had a sound unidimensional factorial structure and was stable over time. Further, higher reported RDS scores were significantly associated with less risk-taking on the BART, holding other variables constant. These studies suggest that individual differences in regret-based decision-making may lead to a more cautious approach to real-world risk behaviors.

scholarly journals Sensitivity to sequential regularities in risky decision making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Kóbor ◽  
Ádám Takács ◽  
Karolina Janacsek ◽  
Zsófia Kardos ◽  
Valéria Csépe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Average Risk ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Risk Taker

AbstractProbabilistic sequence learning involves a set of robust mechanisms that enable the extraction of statistical patterns embedded in the environment. It contributes to different perceptual and cognitive processes as well as to effective behavior adaptation, which is a crucial aspect of decision making. Although previous research attempted to model reinforcement learning and reward sensitivity in different risky decision-making paradigms, the basic mechanism of the sensitivity to statistical regularities has not been anchored to external tasks. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the statistical learning mechanism underlying individual differences in risky decision making. To reach this goal, we tested whether implicit probabilistic sequence learning and risky decision making share common variance. To have a more complex characterization of individual differences in risky decision making, hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted on performance data obtained in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in a large sample of healthy young adults. Implicit probabilistic sequence learning was measured by the Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) task. According to the results, a four-cluster structure was identified involving average risk-taking, slowly responding, risk-taker, and risk-averse groups of participants, respectively. While the entire sample showed significant learning on the ASRT task, we found greater sensitivity to statistical regularities in the risk-taker and risk-averse groups than in participants with average risk-taking. These findings revealed common mechanisms in risky decision making and implicit probabilistic sequence learning and an adaptive aspect of higher risk taking on the BART. Our results could help to clarify the neurocognitive complexity of decision making and its individual differences.

The Moderating Role of Personal Relevance on Differential Priming of Anxiety and Sadness on Perceived Travel Risk: A Replication

2009 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 500-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Bin Chiou ◽  
Ming-Hsu Chang ◽  
Chien-Lung Chen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Personal Relevance ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Mood Repair ◽  
Neutral Mood ◽  
Motivational Influences ◽  
Relevance Condition ◽  
Moderating Role

Raghunathan and Pham conducted a pioneer study in 1999 on the motivational influences of anxiety and sadness on decision making and indicated that anxiety would motivate individuals to be risk averse, whereas sadness would motivate individuals to be risk taking. A replication study was employed in the domain of perceived travel risk. Compared to participants in a neutral mood, anxious participants showed higher perceived travel risk than sad participants. Moreover, the differential effect of anxiety and sadness on perceived travel risk was only pronounced under the high personal relevance condition, in which participants made personal decisions and expected that they would be affected by the outcomes. In general, the results extend the notion proposed by Raghunathan and Pham suggesting that travelers' implicit goals primed by anxiety or sadness used for mood-repair purposes appear to be moderated by personal relevance.

scholarly journals Cuing both positive and negative episodic foresight reduces delay discounting but does not affect risk-taking

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 1998-2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Bulley ◽  
Beyon Miloyan ◽  
Gillian V Pepper ◽  
Matthew J Gullo ◽  
Julie D Henry ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Delay Discounting ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Balloon Analogue Risk Task ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Monetary Choice Questionnaire

Humans frequently create mental models of the future, allowing outcomes to be inferred in advance of their occurrence. Recent evidence suggests that imagining positive future events reduces delay discounting (the devaluation of reward with time until its receipt), while imagining negative future events may increase it. Here, using a sample of 297 participants, we experimentally assess the effects of cued episodic simulation of positive and negative future scenarios on decision-making in the context of both delay discounting (monetary choice questionnaire) and risk-taking (balloon-analogue risk task). Participants discounted the future less when cued to imagine positive and negative future scenarios than they did when cued to engage in control neutral imagery. There were no effects of experimental condition on risk-taking. Thus, although these results replicate previous findings suggesting episodic future simulation can reduce delay discounting, they indicate that this effect is not dependent on the valence of the thoughts, and does not generalise to all other forms of “impulsive” decision-making. We discuss various interpretations of these results, and suggest avenues for further research on the role of prospection in decision-making.

scholarly journals The effect of acute alcohol intoxication on risk attitude

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kayleigh McCarty
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Alcohol Intoxication ◽  
Risk Attitude ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Alcohol Problems ◽  
Acute Alcohol Intoxication ◽  
Placebo Condition ◽  
Risk Taking Behaviors

There is a strong relationship between engaging in risk taking behaviors, or behaviors with a high probability of negative and undesirable consequences, and the use of alcohol and other substances of abuse. Mounting evidence suggests that dysfunctional decision making contributes to the development and maintenance of addiction and related behaviors. This study explored the effects of acute alcohol intoxication on decision making under risk. Regular drinkers were recruited for a within subjects, placebo controlled, alcohol administration study. They completed a decision-making task at peak alcohol intoxication and at a time matched assessment in a placebo condition, as well as several baseline measures. The aim of this study was to examine whether alcohol intoxication impacts risk attitude. The associations between risk attitude and related personality traits, problematic alcohol use, and alcohol related risk-taking behaviors were also tested. The results of the study suggest that intoxicated risk attitude, and not risk attitude in the placebo condition, is associated with indices of alcohol consumption and to a lesser extent, alcohol consequences. Alcohol intoxication did not significantly impact risk attitude classification. Risk attitude was not associated with impulsive personality traits, alcohol expectancies, or risk-taking behaviors. While risk attitude may have utility for identifying those who are at risk for alcohol problems, tasks designed to assess behavior specific decision processes may be useful for understanding risky patterns of decision making.

Social Preferences as an Individual Difference in Offender Decision-making

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chae M. Jaynes ◽  
Thomas A. Loughran
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Future Orientation ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Strategic Decision Making ◽  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
Self Interest

Objectives: We examined the relationship between social preference game behavior and offender status and tested whether this relationship was attributed to genuine prosocial preferences or confounded by individual differences in future orientation, sensation seeking, and risk-taking. Methods: Offender and nonoffender samples played the dictator and ultimatum games. Ordered and generalized ordered logistic regression models were used to test the hypothesis that when compared to nonoffenders, offenders would demonstrate increased self-interest, while also considering competing theoretical mechanisms. Results: Offenders appeared to be more self-interested as indicated by smaller offers in the dictator game. This relationship, however, was attributed to differences in future orientation between the two groups rather than differences in social preferences. Net of demographic controls and competing theoretical mechanisms, however, offenders made smaller offers in the ultimatum game. We argue this finding revealed differences in strategic decision-making between the two groups. Conclusions: Results suggested that offenders were not distinguishable from nonoffenders by individual differences in social preferences. While nonoffenders made larger offers in both games, this finding was attributed to differences in temporal orientation and risk-taking rather than differences in prosocial preferences. This supported the rational choice assumption of self-interest and highlighted differences in strategic decision-making between offenders and nonoffenders.

scholarly journals Stress Makes the Difference: Social Stress and Social Anxiety in Decision-Making Under Uncertainty

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina M. Hengen ◽  
Georg W. Alpers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Decisional Conflict ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Anxious Group ◽  
Angry Face

Stress and anxiety can both influence risk-taking in decision-making. While stress typically increases risk-taking, anxiety often leads to risk-averse choices. Few studies have examined both stress and anxiety in a single paradigm to assess risk-averse choices. We therefore set out to examine emotional decision-making under stress in socially anxious participants. In our study, individuals (N = 87) high or low in social anxiety completed an expanded variation of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). While inflating a balloon to a larger degree is rewarded, a possible explosion leads to (a) a loss of money and (b) it is followed by an emotional picture (i.e., a calm vs. an angry face). To induce stress before this task, participants were told that they would have to deliver a speech. We operationalized risk-taking by the number of pumps during inflation and its functionality by the amount of monetary gain. In addition, response times were recorded as an index of decisional conflict. Without the stressor, high socially anxious compared to low socially anxious participants did not differ in any of the dependent variables. However, under stress, the low socially anxious group took more risk and earned more money, while high socially anxious individuals remained more cautious and did not change their risk-taking under social stress. Overall, high socially anxious individuals made their decisions more hesitantly compared to low socially anxious individuals. Unexpectedly, there were no main effects or interactions with the valence of the emotional faces. This data shows that stress affects socially anxious individuals differently: in low socially anxious individuals stress fosters risk-taking, whereas high socially anxious individuals did not alter their behavior and remained risk-averse. The novel eBART is a promising research tool to examine the specific factors that influence decision-making.

scholarly journals Dread Aversion and Economic Preferences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Dawson ◽  
Samuel Gregory Blane Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Downside Risk ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Suggestive Evidence ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Economic Preferences ◽  
Economic Survey

We are often preoccupied with the future, experiencing dread at the thought of future misery and savoring the thought of future pleasure. Prior lab studies have found that these anticipatory emotions influence decision-making. In this article, using a novel approach, we use economic survey data to estimate individual differences in anticipatory emotions, finding that the tendency to feel displeasure (dread) from anticipating future losses outweighs the pleasure (savoring) from anticipating equal gains—that is, people are dread-averse. We then relate anticipatory emotions to key economic preferences, finding that more dread-averse people are more risk-averse (because they obtain more disutility from contemplating downside risk) and more impatient (because they want to minimize the time spent contemplating risks). We conclude by considering how dread aversion can provide novel explanations for a variety of intertemporal and risky choice phenomena. Dread aversion explains why people are both risk-averse and impatient and provides suggestive evidence as to why these traits are linked.

scholarly journals Optimal contracts with a risk‐taking agent

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 715-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Barron ◽  
George Georgiadis ◽  
Jeroen Swinkels
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Limited Liability ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Optimal Contracts ◽  
Risk Neutral ◽  
Profit Maximizing ◽  
Over Time

Consider an agent who can costlessly add mean‐preserving noise to his output. To deter such risk‐taking, the principal optimally offers a contract that makes the agent's utility concave in output. If the agent is risk‐neutral and protected by limited liability, this concavity constraint binds and so linear contracts maximize profit. If the agent is risk averse, the concavity constraint might bind for some outputs but not others. We characterize the unique profit‐maximizing contract and show how deterring risk‐taking affects the insurance‐incentive trade‐off. Our logic extends to costly risk‐taking and to dynamic settings where the agent can shift output over time.

scholarly journals Preprint of “How does peer competition modulates risk-taking behavior: Evidence from Event-related potentials (ERPs) in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART)”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming-Chen Zhang ◽  
Kai Dou
Keyword(s):  
Peer Influence ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Comparison Theory ◽  
Balloon Analogue Risk Task ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Risk Taking Behavior ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Risk Taking Behaviors

The relation between peer influence and risk-taking behaviors has received extensive empirical attention. However, the underlying mechanisms of whether how two-way conflicting context influences risk-taking behaviors still remain unclear. To this end, the current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how peer competition affects risk-taking behaviors among adolescents. Twenty-four college students completed a Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) under two contexts: single and peer competition condition. Behavioral results showed that participants prefer risk aversion in competitive context. ERPs results showed that participants induce higher N2 under peer competition in the decision-making phase. In the feedback phase, a higher P300 was observed in single condition while a more negative feedback-related negativity (FRN) was showed after loss feedback. Results are in line with social comparison theory and reinforcement learning theory. The specific effect of peer influence on risk-taking behavior has been discussed.

scholarly journals Regulation of evidence accumulation by pupil-linked arousal processes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waitsang Keung ◽  
Todd A. Hagen ◽  
Robert C. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Auditory Information ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Pupil Response ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Integration Kernel ◽  
Over Time

AbstractIntegrating evidence over time is crucial for effective decision making. For simple perceptual decisions, a large body of work suggests that humans and animals are capable of integrating evidence over time fairly well, but that their performance is far from optimal. This suboptimality is thought to arise from a number of different sources including: (1) noise in sensory and motor systems, (2) unequal weighting of evidence over time, (3) order effects from previous trials and (4) irrational side biases for one choice over another. In this work we investigated these di.erent sources of suboptimality and how they are related to pupil dilation, a putative correlate of norepinephrine tone. In particular, we measured pupil response in humans making a series of decisions based on rapidly-presented auditory information in an evidence accumulation task. We found that people exhibited all four types of suboptimality, and that some of these suboptimalities covaried with each other across participants. Pupillometry showed that only noise and the uneven weighting of evidence over time, the ‘integration kernel’, were related to the change in pupil response during the stimulus. Moreover, these two different suboptimalities were related to different aspects of the pupil signal, with the individual differences in pupil response associated with individual differences in integration kernel, while trial-by-trial fluctuations in pupil response were associated with trial-by-trial fluctuations in noise. These results suggest that di.erent sources of suboptimality in human perceptual decision making are related to distinct pupil-linked processes possibly related to tonic and phasic norepinephrine activity.

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