scholarly journals No differences between autistic and non-autistic adults in social influence on risky decision-making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Hickman ◽  
Connor Keating ◽  
Jennifer Cook ◽  
Elliot Andrew Ludvig
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
The Social ◽  
Comparable Performance ◽  
Autistic Adults

Everyday risky decisions are susceptible to influence from a variety of sources, including the social context in which decisions take place. In the general population, people update their risk preferences based on knowledge of choices made by previous participants. In this study, we examined the influence of social information on the risky decision-making of autistic adults, a group in which differences in social processing have been observed. Autistic and non-autistic adults completed a risky decision-making task in the presence of both social and non-social information, either choosing for themselves or someone else on each trial. Notably, the social information comprised tokens that represented preferences of previous participants and was thus devoid of overt social cues such as faces or gestures. The non-social condition comprised a previously validated method where tokens represented “preferences” generated by weighted roulette wheels. Participants significantly shifted their choices when the influence (social or non-social) suggested a less risky choice. There were no group differences in risky decision-making when deciding for oneself compared to others. Interestingly, no differences in the effects of social and non-social influence were found between autistic and non-autistic adults. Considering previous evidence of social influence differences when using overtly social cues, we suggest that the removal of social cues in our paradigm led to comparable performance between the autistic and non-autistic groups. The current study paves the way for future studies investigating a confounding effect of social cues, which will lead to important insight for theories of social influence in autism.

scholarly journals Risk-based Decision Making in Rats: Modulation by Sex and Amphetamine

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dannia Islas-Preciado ◽  
Steven R. Wainwright ◽  
Julia Sniegocki ◽  
Stephane E. Lieblich ◽  
Shunya Yagi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Gonadal Hormones ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Male Rats ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
17Β Estradiol ◽  
Males And Females

AbstractDecision-making is a complex process essential to daily adaptation in many species. Risk is an inherent aspect of decision-making and it is influenced by gonadal hormones. Testosterone and 17β-estradiol may modulate decision making and impact the mesocorticolimbic dopamine pathway. Here, we explored sex differences, the effect of gonadal hormones and the dopamine agonist amphetamine on risk-based decision making. Intact or gonadectomised (GDX) male and female rats underwent to a probabilistic discounting task. High and low doses of testosterone propionate (1.0 or 0.2 mg) and 17β-estradiol benzoate (0.3 μg) were administered to assess acute effects on risk-based decision making. After 3-days of washout period, intact and GDX rats received high or low (0.5 or 0.125 mg/kg) doses of amphetamine and re-tested in the probabilistic discounting task. Under baseline conditions, males made more risky choices during probability discounting compared to female rats, particularly in the lower probability blocks, but GDX did not influence risky choice. The high, but not the low dose, of testosterone modestly reduced risky decision making in GDX male rats. Conversely, 17β-estradiol had no significant effect on risky choice regardless of GDX status in either sex. Lastly, a higher dose of amphetamine increased risky decision making in both intact males and females, but had no effect in GDX rats. These findings demonstrated sex differences in risk-based decision making, with males showing a stronger bias towards larger, uncertain rewards. GDX status influenced the effects of amphetamine, suggesting different dopaminergic regulation in risk-based choices among males and females.

scholarly journals When imitating successful others fails: Accidentally successful exemplars inspire risky decisions and can hamper performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (6) ◽  
pp. 941-956
Author(s):  
Wijnand AP van Tilburg ◽  
Nikhila Mahadevan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Gambling Behaviour ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Regression To The Mean ◽  
Risky Behaviour ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
The Impact

We examined the impact of viewing exemplars on people’s behaviour in risky decision-making environments. Specifically, we tested if people disproportionally choose to view and then imitate the behaviour of successful (vs. unsuccessful) others, which in the case of risky decision-making increases risk-taking and can hamper performance. In doing so, our research tested how a fundamental social psychological process (social influence) interacts with a fundamental statistical phenomenon (regression to the mean) to produce biases in decision-making. Experiment 1 ( N = 96) showed that people indeed model their own behaviour after that of a successful exemplar, resulting in more risky behaviour and poorer outcomes. Experiment 2 ( N = 208) indicated that people disproportionately choose to examine and then imitate most successful versus least successful exemplars. Experiment 3 ( N = 381) replicated Experiment 2 in a context where participants were offered the freedom to examine any possible exemplar, or no exemplar whatsoever, and across different incentive conditions. The results have implications for decision-making in a broad range of social contexts, such as education, health, and finances where risk-taking can have detrimental outcomes, and they may be particularly helpful to understand the role of social influence in gambling behaviour.

scholarly journals The continuous and changing impact of affect on risky decision-making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erkin Asutay ◽  
Daniel Västfjäll
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Temporal Integration ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Affective Experience ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Dynamic Representation ◽  
Subjective Value ◽  
Behavioral Evidence

Abstract Affective experience has an important role in decision-making with recent theories suggesting a modulatory role of affect in ongoing subjective value computations. However, it is unclear how varying expectations and uncertainty dynamically influence affective experience and how dynamic representation of affect modulates risky choices. Using hierarchical Bayesian modeling on data from a risky choice task (N = 101), we find that the temporal integration of recently encountered choice parameters (expected value, uncertainty, and prediction errors) shapes affective experience and impacts subsequent choice behavior. Specifically, experienced arousal prior to choice was associated with increased loss aversion, risk aversion, and choice consistency. Taken together, these findings provide clear behavioral evidence for continuous affective modulation of subjective value computations during risky decision-making.

scholarly journals The Wisdom of Model Crowds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisheng He ◽  
Pantelis P. Analytis ◽  
Sudeep Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Choice Behavior ◽  
Predictive Performance ◽  
Choice Models ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Performance Bound ◽  
Individual Level

A wide body of empirical research has revealed the descriptive shortcomings of expected value and expected utility models of risky decision making. In response, numerous models have been advanced to predict and explain people’s choices between gambles. Although some of these models have had a great impact in the behavioral, social and management sciences, there is little consensus about which model offers the best account of choice behavior. In this paper, we conduct a large-scale comparison of 58 prominent models of risky choice, using 19 existing behavioral datasets involving more than 800 participants. This allows us to comprehensively evaluate models in terms of individual-level predictive performance across a range of different choice settings. We also identify the psychological mechanisms that lead to superior predictive performance and the properties of choice stimuli that favor certain types of models over others. Second, drawing on research on the wisdom of crowds, we argue that each of the existing models can be seen as an expert that provides unique forecasts in choice predictions. Consistent with this claim, we find that crowds of risky choice models perform better than individual models and thus provide a performance bound for assessing the historical accumulation of knowledge in our field. Our results suggest that each model captures unique aspects of the decision process, and that existing risky choice models offer complementary rather than competing accounts of behavior. We discuss the implications of our results on theories of risky decision making and the quantitative modeling of choice behavior.

Choosing for another: Social context changes dissociable computational mechanisms of risky decision-making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic S. Fareri ◽  
Joanne Stasiak ◽  
Peter Sokol-Hessner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social World ◽  
Close Friend ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Hierarchical Bayesian Estimation ◽  
The Social

Choices under conditions of risk often have consequences not just for ourselves, but for others. Yet, it is unclear how the other’s identity (stranger, close friend, etc.) influences risky choices made on their behalf. Here, two groups of undergraduates made a series of risky economic decisions for themselves, for another person, or for both themselves and another person (i.e., shared outcomes); one group of participants made choices involving a same-sex stranger (n = 29), the other made choices involving a same-sex close friend (n = 28). Hierarchical Bayesian Estimation of computations underlying risky decision-making revealed that relative to choosing for themselves, people were more risk averse, more loss averse, and more consistent when choices involved another person. Interestingly, partner identity differentially modulated decision computations. People became risk neutral and more consistent when choosing for friends relative to strangers. In sum, these findings suggest that the complexity of the social world is mirrored in its nuanced consequences for our choices.

The Wisdom of Model Crowds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisheng He ◽  
Pantelis P. Analytis ◽  
Sudeep Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Choice Behavior ◽  
Predictive Performance ◽  
Choice Models ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Performance Bound ◽  
Individual Level

A wide body of empirical research has revealed the descriptive shortcomings of expected value and expected utility models of risky decision making. In response, numerous models have been advanced to predict and explain people’s choices between gambles. Although some of these models have had a great impact in the behavioral, social, and management sciences, there is little consensus about which model offers the best account of choice behavior. In this paper, we conduct a large-scale comparison of 58 prominent models of risky choice, using 19 existing behavioral data sets involving more than 800 participants. This allows us to comprehensively evaluate models in terms of individual-level predictive performance across a range of different choice settings. We also identify the psychological mechanisms that lead to superior predictive performance and the properties of choice stimuli that favor certain types of models over others. Moreover, drawing on research on the wisdom of crowds, we argue that each of the existing models can be seen as an expert that provides unique forecasts in choice predictions. Consistent with this claim, we find that crowds of risky choice models perform better than individual models and thus provide a performance bound for assessing the historical accumulation of knowledge in our field. Our results suggest that each model captures unique aspects of the decision process and that existing risky choice models offer complementary rather than competing accounts of behavior. We discuss the implications of our results on theories of risky decision making and the quantitative modeling of choice behavior. This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, behavioral economics and decision analysis.

scholarly journals Curiosity is Contagious: A Social Influence Intervention to Induce Curiosity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachit Dubey ◽  
Hermish Mehta ◽  
Tania Lombrozo
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Dramatic Effect ◽  
Social Cue ◽  
The Social ◽  
On Line ◽  
Subsequent Behavior ◽  
Scientific Questions

Our actions and decisions are regularly influenced by the social environment around us. Can social cues be leveraged to induce curiosity and affect subsequent behavior? Across two experiments, we show that curiosity is contagious: the social environment can influence people's curiosity about the answers to scientific questions. Participants were presented with everyday questions about science from a popular on-line forum, and these were shown with a high or low number of up-votes as a social cue to popularity. Participants indicated their curiosity about the answers, and they were given an opportunity to reveal a subset of those answers. Participants reported greater curiosity about the answers to questions when the questions were presented with a high (vs. low) number of up-votes, and they were also more likely to choose to reveal the answers to questions with a high (vs. low) number of up-votes. These effects were partially mediated by surprise and by the inferred usefulness of knowledge, with a more dramatic effect of low up-votes in reducing curiosity than of high up-votes in boosting curiosity. Taken together, these results highlight the important role social information plays in shaping our curiosity.

scholarly journals Endogenous fluctuations in the dopaminergic midbrain drive behavioral choice variability

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (37) ◽  
pp. 18732-18737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Chew ◽  
Tobias U. Hauser ◽  
Marina Papoutsi ◽  
Joerg Magerkurth ◽  
Raymond J. Dolan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Blood Oxygenation ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Physiological Basis ◽  
Endogenous Fluctuations ◽  
Increased Risk

Human behavior is surprisingly variable, even when facing the same problem under identical circumstances. A prominent example is risky decision making. Economic theories struggle to explain why humans are so inconsistent. Resting-state studies suggest that ongoing endogenous fluctuations in brain activity can influence low-level perceptual and motor processes, but it remains unknown whether endogenous fluctuations also influence high-level cognitive processes including decision making. Here, using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested whether risky decision making is influenced by endogenous fluctuations in blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activity in the dopaminergic midbrain, encompassing ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra. We show that low prestimulus brain activity leads to increased risky choice in humans. Using computational modeling, we show that increased risk taking is explained by enhanced phasic responses to offers in a decision network. Our findings demonstrate that endogenous brain activity provides a physiological basis for variability in complex human behavior.

Behind Closed Doors: The Role of Depressed Affect on Risky Choices Under Time Pressure

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 198-207
Author(s):  
Kaileigh Byrne ◽  
Hunter Willis ◽  
Caitlin Peters ◽  
Deborah Kunkel ◽  
Thomas Tibbett
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
High Pressure ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Low Pressure ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Performance Pressure ◽  
Depressed Affect ◽  
Pressure Experiment

Previous research suggests that depressive symptoms are associated with altered sensitivity to reward and punishment in various decision-making contexts. Building on this work, this study investigated whether depressed-affect symptoms influenced risky decision making under time pressure. The effect of depressed affect on risky choice was assessed in a reward (Experiments 1A and 1B) and loss (Experiment 2) context under low- and high-pressure conditions. Decisions involved learning to choose between a “sure” option and a “risky” option with identical expected values. In Experiment 1A, depressed affect predicted increased risky decision making under time pressure but did not affect decision making under low pressure. Experiment 1B replicated this effect. In contrast, in Experiment 2, depressed affect led to reduced risk taking in low-pressure condition but did not affect decision making under high pressure. These results suggest that the pattern of risky decision making among those experiencing symptoms of depressed affect depends on performance pressure demands.

scholarly journals Is the Peer Presence Effect on Heightened Adolescent Risky Decision-Making only Present in Males?

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 693-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivy N. Defoe ◽  
Judith Semon Dubas ◽  
Edwin S. Dalmaijer ◽  
Marcel A. G. van Aken
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Moderation Effect ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adolescent Risk ◽  
Traffic Behavior

AbstractSocial neurodevelopmental imbalance models posit that peer presence causes heightened adolescent risk-taking particularly during early adolescence. Evolutionary theory suggests that these effects would be most pronounced in males. However, the small but growing number of experimental studies on peer presence effects in adolescent risky decision-making showed mixed findings, and the vast majority of such studies did not test for the above-described gender and adolescent phase moderation effects. Moreover, most of those studies did not assess the criterion validity of the employed risky decision-making tasks. The current study was designed to investigate the abovementioned hypotheses among a sample of 327 ethnically-diverse Dutch early and mid-adolescents (49.80% female; Mage = 13.61). No main effect of peer presence on the employed risky-decision making task (i.e., the stoplight game) was found. However, the results showed a gender by peer presence moderation effect. Namely, whereas boys and girls engaged in equal levels of risks when they completed the stoplight game alone, boys engaged in more risk-taking than girls when they completed this task together with two same-sex peers. In contrast, adolescent phase did not moderate peer presence effects on risk-taking. Finally, the results showed that performance on the stoplight game predicted self-reported real-world risky traffic behavior, alcohol use and delinquency. Taken together, using a validated task, the present findings demonstrate that individual differences (i.e., gender) can determine whether the social environment (i.e., peer presence) affect risk-taking in early- and mid-adolescents. The finding that performance on a laboratory risky decision-making task can perhaps help identify adolescents that are vulnerable to diverse types of heightened risk behaviors is an important finding for science as well as prevention and intervention efforts.

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