Dataset Information

The Role of Psychological and Physiological Factors in Decision Making under Risk and in a Dilemma.

ABSTRACT: Different methods to elicit risk attitudes of individuals often provide differing results despite a common theory. Reasons for such inconsistencies may be the different influence of underlying factors in risk-taking decisions. In order to evaluate this conjecture, a better understanding of underlying factors across methods and decision contexts is desirable. In this paper we study the difference in result of two different risk elicitation methods by linking estimates of risk attitudes to gender, age, and personality traits, which have been shown to be related. We also investigate the role of these factors during decision-making in a dilemma situation. For these two decision contexts we also investigate the decision-maker's physiological state during the decision, measured by heart rate variability (HRV), which we use as an indicator of emotional involvement. We found that the two elicitation methods provide different individual risk attitude measures which is partly reflected in a different gender effect between the methods. Personality traits explain only relatively little in terms of driving risk attitudes and the difference between methods. We also found that risk taking and the physiological state are related for one of the methods, suggesting that more emotionally involved individuals are more risk averse in the experiment. Finally, we found evidence that personality traits are connected to whether individuals made a decision in the dilemma situation, but risk attitudes and the physiological state were not indicative for the ability to decide in this decision context.

SUBMITTER: Fooken J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4722108 | biostudies-other | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The Role of Psychological and Physiological Factors in Decision Making under Risk and in a Dilemma.

Fooken Jonas J Schaffner Markus M

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience 20160122

Different methods to elicit risk attitudes of individuals often provide differing results despite a common theory. Reasons for such inconsistencies may be the different influence of underlying factors in risk-taking decisions. In order to evaluate this conjecture, a better understanding of underlying factors across methods and decision contexts is desirable. In this paper we study the difference in result of two different risk elicitation methods by linking estimates of risk attitudes to gender, ...[more]

PMID: 26834591

Similar Datasets

Project description:BACKGROUND:Animals' attitudes to risk are profoundly influenced by metabolic state (hunger and baseline energy stores). Specifically, animals often express a preference for risky (more variable) food sources when below a metabolic reference point (hungry), and safe (less variable) food sources when sated. Circulating hormones report the status of energy reserves and acute nutrient intake to widespread targets in the central nervous system that regulate feeding behaviour, including brain regions strongly implicated in risk and reward based decision-making in humans. Despite this, physiological influences per se have not been considered previously to influence economic decisions in humans. We hypothesised that baseline metabolic reserves and alterations in metabolic state would systematically modulate decision-making and financial risk-taking in humans. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We used a controlled feeding manipulation and assayed decision-making preferences across different metabolic states following a meal. To elicit risk-preference, we presented a sequence of 200 paired lotteries, subjects' task being to select their preferred option from each pair. We also measured prandial suppression of circulating acyl-ghrelin (a centrally-acting orexigenic hormone signalling acute nutrient intake), and circulating leptin levels (providing an assay of energy reserves). We show both immediate and delayed effects on risky decision-making following a meal, and that these changes correlate with an individual's baseline leptin and changes in acyl-ghrelin levels respectively. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:We show that human risk preferences are exquisitely sensitive to current metabolic state, in a direction consistent with ecological models of feeding behaviour but not predicted by normative economic theory. These substantive effects of state changes on economic decisions perhaps reflect shared evolutionarily conserved neurobiological mechanisms. We suggest that this sensitivity in human risk-preference to current metabolic state has significant implications for both real-world economic transactions and for aberrant decision-making in eating disorders and obesity.

Project description:ObjectiveNumerous studies have identified impaired decision making (DM) under both ambiguity and risk in adult patients with schizophrenia. However, the assessment of DM in patients with adolescent-onset schizophrenia (AOS) has been challenging as a result of the instability and heterogeneity of manifestations. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and Game of Dice Task (GDT), which are frequently used to evaluate DM respectively under ambiguity and risk, are sensitive to adolescents and neuropsychiatric patients. Our research intended to examine the performance of DM in a relatively large sample of patients with AOS using the above-mentioned two tasks. We also aimed to take a closer look at the relationship between DM and symptom severity of schizophrenia.MethodsWe compared the performance of DM in 71 patients with AOS and 53 well-matched healthy controls using IGT for DM under ambiguity and GDT for DM under risk through net scores, total scores and feedback ration. Neuropsychological tests were conducted in all participants. Clinical symptoms were evaluated by using Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) in 71 patients with AOS. Pearson's correlation revealed the relationship among total score of DM and clinical and neuropsychological data.ResultsCompared to healthy controls, patients with AOS failed to show learning effect and had a significant difference on the 5th block in IGT and conducted more disadvantageous choices as well as exhibited worse negative feedback rate in GDT. Apart from DM impairment under risk, diminished DM abilities under ambiguity were found related to poor executive function in AOS in the present study.ConclusionsOur findings unveiled the abnormal pattern of DM in AOS, mainly reflected under the risky condition, extending the knowledge on the performance of DM under ambiguity and risk in AOS. Inefficient DM under risk may account for the lagging impulse control and the combined effects of developmental disease. In addition, our study demonstrated that the performance on IGT was related to executive function in AOS.

Dataset Information

The Role of Psychological and Physiological Factors in Decision Making under Risk and in a Dilemma.

Publications

The Role of Psychological and Physiological Factors in Decision Making under Risk and in a Dilemma.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure