scholarly journals A Bayesian Modelling Approach to Examine the Role of Testosterone Administration on the Endowment Effect and Risk-Taking

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Votinov ◽  
Irina S Knyazeva ◽  
Ute Habel ◽  
Kerstin Konrad ◽  
Andrei A. Puiu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Serum Testosterone ◽  
Endowment Effect ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Transdermal Application ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Binary Choices ◽  
Testosterone Administration

We investigated the effects of testosterone administration on aspects of decision-making within the Prospect Theory framework. Using bayesian modeling, we assessed risk-taking under framing and Endowment Effect (effect of possession). We administered 100mg testosterone to forty men in a double-blind placebo-controlled fully-randomized cross-over experiment where they participated in two tasks. One was a risktaking task with binary choices under positive and negative framing with different probabilities. In a second task, participants had to bid for for two categories of items, hedonic and utilitarian. We observed a significant increase in serum testosterone concentrations after transdermal application. Compared to placebo, testosterone administration increased risk-taking under the positive framing and decreased under the negative framing. The sensitivity to gain was positive in each framing. Our model showed that decision-making is jointly influenced by testosterone and the trade-off between gains and losses. Moreover, while the endowment effect was more pronounced for hedonic than for utilitarian items, the effect was independent of testosterone. The findings provide novel information for the complex modulatory role of testosterone on risk-taking. The proposed models of effects of individual differences in testosterone on risk-taking could be used as predictive models.

scholarly journals Testosterone increases risk-taking for status but not for money

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel B Losecaat Vermeer ◽  
Maarten Boksem ◽  
Christian Gausterer ◽  
Christoph Eisenegger ◽  
Claus Lamm
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Risk Preferences ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Increase Risk ◽  
Testosterone Administration ◽  
Gains And Losses

Testosterone has long been thought to increase risk-taking, but evidence supporting this association is mixed. Instead, testosterone’s key role may be to promote status-seeking behaviors. Here, we examined to what extent testosterone administration affects risk preferences for both monetary and social status outcomes, and whether this relationship is moderated by an individuals’ social status. Male participants (N=166) experienced high or low status in a competition task and then played two risk tasks; one involving gambles with only monetary outcomes, and another one involving gambles with non-monetary outcomes that influenced their social rank. We found that testosterone (vs. placebo) altered risk preferences for gains and losses in social rank, but not for monetary gains and losses. Specifically, testosterone increased risk-taking to increase social rank in individuals with high, but not low social status. These results demonstrate a context-dependent role of testosterone in regulating risk-taking for social status.

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.

The Role of Parental Monitoring in Mediating the Link Between Adolescent ADHD Symptoms and Risk-Taking Behavior

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 1141-1147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yehuda Pollak ◽  
Bella Poni ◽  
Naama Gershy ◽  
Adi Aran
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Parental Monitoring ◽  
Parental Knowledge ◽  
Adhd Symptoms ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Reduce Risk ◽  
Risk Taking Behavior ◽  
Risk Taking Behaviors ◽  
Youth With Adhd

Objective: ADHD in adolescents and low level of parental monitoring have been associated with increased risk-taking behavior. The present study examined whether parental knowledge of the child’s whereabouts mediates the correlations between adolescent ADHD symptoms and risk-taking behavior. Method: Ninety-two adolescents and their parents completed questionnaires assessing perceptions of parents’ monitoring, engagement in risk-taking behaviors, and ADHD symptoms. Results: Greater engagement in risk-taking behavior correlated with higher levels of ADHD symptoms and decreased parental monitoring. Mediation analysis revealed both direct effect of ADHD symptoms on risk-taking behavior and an indirect effect mediated by level of parental knowledge. Conclusion: These findings suggest that parental knowledge is negatively affected by the presence of ADHD symptoms, and may in turn lead to risk-taking behavior. The findings emphasize the need to target parenting and in particular parental knowledge of the child’s whereabouts to reduce risk-taking behaviors among youth with ADHD.

scholarly journals The Role of Emotions in Economic Decision Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aslı Öztopçu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Cognitive Error ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Individual Effects

Decision making points out to the consequences of past or future behaviors. An individual has to make decisions on all subjects throughout his life. An important part of these decisions are economic decisions. Individuals make decisions such as renting, buying, buying new goods, migrating, changing jobs, making investments, enterprise, choosing holidays, evaluating savings. Non-rational decisions are observed although individuals should make rational decision, according to mainstream economics. In this study, the effects of the emotions that form the basis of psychology, such as time, option constraint, opportunities, risk taking, risk aversion, procrastination, rush, or uncertainty, inconsistency, intuitive movement, cognitive error in the decision-making process of individuals are discussed. For this purpose, the characteristics of decision-making process, individual effects of cognitive of emotions, individual decision making theorems in economic theory and behavioral economics literature are mentioned. It is thought that the role of emotions that shape behaviors should be known in the regulation of economic life that is determined according to human behavior.

scholarly journals Fear from Afar, Not So Risky After All: Distancing Moderates the Relationship Between Fear and Risk Taking

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewend Mayiwar ◽  
Fredrik Björklund
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Risk Estimation ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Judgment And Decision Making ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Relationship

A growing line of research has shown that individuals can regulate emotional biases in risky judgment and decision-making processes through cognitive reappraisal. In the present study, we focus on a specific tactic of reappraisal known as distancing. Drawing on appraisal theories of emotion and the emotion regulation literature, we examine how distancing moderates the relationship between fear and risk taking and anger and risk taking. In three pre-registered studies (Ntotal = 1,483), participants completed various risky judgment and decision-making tasks. Replicating previous results, Study 1 revealed a negative relationship between fear and risk taking and a positive relationship between anger and risk taking at low levels of distancing. Study 2 replicated the interaction between fear and distancing but found no interaction between anger and distancing. Interestingly, at high levels of distancing, we observed a reversal of the relationship between fear and risk taking in both Study 1 and 2. Study 3 manipulated emotion and distancing by asking participants to reflect on current fear-related and anger-related stressors from an immersed or distanced perspective. Study 3 found no main effect of emotion nor any evidence of a moderating role of distancing. However, exploratory analysis revealed a main effect of distancing on optimistic risk estimation, which was mediated by a reduction in self-reported fear. Overall, the findings suggest that distancing can help regulate the influence of incidental fear on risk taking and risk estimation. We discuss implications and suggestions for future research.

scholarly journals The Psychology of Risk Management

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaëlle Vallée-Tourangeau ◽  
Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Decision Making Under Uncertainty ◽  
Risk And Uncertainty ◽  
Investment Performance ◽  
Human Risk ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Shed Light

A better understanding of how human factors may shape risk perception and risk-taking is key to improve investment performance. This chapter draws on research on the psychology of risk and decision-making under uncertainty to shed light on these issues. The first part focuses on the evaluation of risk and uncertainty. After outlining the different psychological concepts of uncertainty, we review the different factors influencing individuals’ subjective perception of risk as well as the heuristics they may use to gauge risk and uncertainty. The second part of this chapter focuses on the different factors influencing human risk-taking behaviour, ranging from attitudes to risk to the contexts in which risky decisions take place, and the role of emotions in risk-taking.

scholarly journals Visual fixation patterns during economic choice reflect covert valuation processes that emerge with learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (45) ◽  
pp. 22795-22801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean E. Cavanagh ◽  
W. M. Nishantha Malalasekera ◽  
Bruno Miranda ◽  
Laurence T. Hunt ◽  
Steven W. Kennerley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Final Choice ◽  
Decision Systems ◽  
Economic Choice ◽  
Binary Choices ◽  
Visual Fixations ◽  
Economic Choices

Visual fixations play a vital role in decision making. Recent studies have demonstrated that the longer subjects fixate an option, the more likely they are to choose it. However, the role of evaluating stimuli covertly (i.e., without fixating them), and how covert evaluations determine where to subsequently fixate, remains relatively unexplored. Here, we trained monkeys to perform a decision-making task where they made binary choices between reward-predictive stimuli which were well-learned (“overtrained”), recently learned (“novel”), or a combination of both (“mixed”). Subjects were free to saccade around the screen and make a choice (via joystick response) at any time. Subjects rarely fixated both options, yet choice behavior was better explained by assuming the values of both stimuli governed choices. The first fixation latency was fast (∼150 ms) but, surprisingly, its direction was value-driven. This suggests covert evaluation of stimulus values prior to first saccade. This was particularly evident for overtrained stimuli. For novel stimuli, first fixations became increasingly value-driven throughout a behavioral session. However, this improvement lagged behind learning of accurate economic choices, suggesting separate processes governed their learning. Finally, mixed trials revealed a strong bias toward fixating the novel stimulus first but no bias toward choosing it. Our results suggest that the primate brain contains fast covert evaluation mechanisms for guiding fixations toward highly valuable and novel information. By employing such covert mechanisms, fixation behavior becomes dissociable from the value comparison processes that drive final choice. This implies that primates use separable decision systems for value-guided fixations and value-guided choice.

scholarly journals Role of Testosterone in the Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn M Webb ◽  
Peter Collins ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Cardiovascular Disease ◽  
Cardiovascular System ◽  
Serum Testosterone ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Premature Coronary Artery Disease ◽  
Cvd Risk ◽  
Testosterone Levels ◽  
Increased Risk

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most prevalent non-communicable cause of death worldwide. Testosterone is a sex hormone that is predominant in males but also occurs in lower concentrations in females. It has effects directly on the blood vessels of the cardiovascular system and on the heart, as well as effects on risk factors for CVD. Serum testosterone concentrations are known to decrease with age and reduced testosterone levels are linked to premature coronary artery disease, unfavourable effects on CVD risk factors and increased risk of cardiovascular mortality independent of age. A significant number of men with heart failure demonstrate reduced serum testosterone concentrations and there is early evidence suggesting that low testosterone levels affect cardiac repolarisation. Any association between endogenous testosterone concentrations and CVD in women has yet to be established. Testosterone replacement is used to treat men with hypogonadism but also has cardiovascular effects. This review will present the current evidence, expert opinion and controversies around the role of testosterone in the pathophysiology of CVD and surrounding the use of testosterone treatment and its effects on the cardiovascular system and CVD.

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