Attraction and delay of gratification

The present study examined the degree to which differential attraction to the prizes could explain children's decisions in a delay of gratification situation. After rating the attractiveness of prizes, each child responded to four delay choice situations. While significant effects were obtained on only one choice pair, the results generalized to the other choices: nondelayers consistently perceived less discrepancy in attraction between the immediate and delayed rewards than did delayers. In general, the smaller discrepancy among nondelayers was due to a greater attraction to the immediate prize. As predicted, these results held only for “inconsistent” children and not for children who consistently delayed or did not delay across all four choices. The implications of this finding for trait-situation explanations of delay are discussed. While it was predicted that differential attraction would explain previously reported SES differences in delay tendencies, middle and lower SES children responded similarly, both in level of attraction to the prizes and actual delay behavior.     

When mixed options are preferred in multiple‐trial decisions

We report three studies showing that in prospective multiple‐trial decisions people often select a mix of sure and risky options over pure bundles of either option. Such a preference is not ‘rational’ because a mixed option cannot be the EV‐maximizing choice. Experiment 1 confirmed a mixed‐option preference for gains but not for losses. Showing a graph of the multiple‐trial outcome distribution reduced but did not eliminate this effect, suggesting that it is not due purely to a failure to aggregate correctly over the multiple trials. Experiment 2 replicated the mixed option preference using a wider range of problems. Experiment 3 compared choices in the trinary choice conditions used in Experiments 1 and 2 with binary choices between pairs of the multiple‐trial sure, mixed, and risky options. In the binary choice condition the mixed option was no longer the modal choice, suggesting that the strong mixed option preference found in the trinary choice conditions is mainly due to a compromise effect. However, the binary choice probabilities did show violations of strong stochastic transitivity in a pattern that suggested a slight bias toward the mixed option. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Better Safe than Sorry: Risking Irresponsibility by Seeking Uncertainty

Research findings differ as to whether choosing a risky option is an efficient strategy for decision makers seeking to avoid responsibility for potential failures. A risky choice may leave the final outcome to chance factors, but the decision maker can still be held responsible for choosing risk. Further, it is unclear whether a risky choice is a responsible choice. The present article investigates the putative relationship between risk‐taking and responsibility by drawing a distinction between being responsible for the outcome (R1) versus acting responsibly (R2). Four experiments were performed, in which participants were presented with scenarios describing decision makers facing a choice between a risky (uncertain) option and a riskless (certain) option, framed in terms of losses or equivalent gains. The results showed that decision makers who chose the risky alternative were judged to have acted in a less responsible manner (R2), while still being held equally responsible for the outcome (R1), unless they were ignorant of the risks involved. Choosing risk did not absolve decision makers from blame, despite being less causal and less in control than those who chose the riskless option. Risky decision makers were also judged to be more personally involved. The dissociation between R1 and R2 ratings confirms earlier findings and serves to clarify an alleged relationship between risky choices and responsibility aversion. Framing effects for own choices were found in both scenarios. In contrast, responsibility ratings were only slightly affected by frame. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linguistic–Numeric Presentation Mode Effects on Risky Option Preferences

In this study, we examine preferences between lotteries with chances presented either numerically or linguistically. Presentation mode is predicted to affect preferences due to the perception of linguistic chance as skewed distributions of risk. Based upon weighting functions incorporating risk/uncertainty aversion from ambiguity theory and cumulative prospect theory, we predict that presentation mode effects on risky choices will be detectable in very small risks and in large risks. In two experiments, subjects chose between both gain and loss lotteries with constant payoffs and equivalent numeric and linguistic chances. Presentation mode affected choices when chances were above 50%, where lotteries with numeric chances were more frequently preferred in gains while lotteries with linguistic chances were more often preferred in losses. The effect of presentation mode for low-chance lotteries (5% and less) also affected choices such that numeric choices were generally preferred more frequently in losses and linguistically expressed choices were generally preferred more often in gains. Overall, these results suggest that theories of the effects of second order uncertainty on risky choice may be used to model decisions involving linguistic risk. They also suggest that the study of the perception of linguistic risk assessments can provide insight into the cognitive processing behind the weighting functions proposed to depict decision under risk and uncertainty. Finally, the results have practical implications since information providers can affect decision makers’ choices by controlling presentation mode in such a way as to alter the relative attractiveness of uncertain events.     

Attention in risky choice

Previous research on the processes involved in risky decisions has rarely linked process data to choice directly. We used a simple measure based on the relative amount of attentional deployment to different components (gains/losses and their probabilities) of a risky gamble during the choice process, and we related this measure to the actual choice. In an experiment we recorded the decisions, decision times, and eye movements of 80 participants who made decisions on 11 choice problems. We used the number of eye fixations and fixation transitions to trace the deployment of attention during the choice process and obtained the following main results. First, different components of a gamble attracted different amounts of attention depending on participants' actual choice. This was reflected in both the number of fixations and the fixation transitions. Second, the last-fixated gamble but not the last-fixated reason predicted participants' choices. Third, a comparison of data obtained with eye tracking and data obtained with verbal protocols from a previous study showed a large degree of convergence regarding the process of risky choice. Together these findings tend to support dimensional decision strategies such as the priority heuristic.     

Stability of choices in a risky decision‐making task: a 3‐year longitudinal study with children and adults

In a 3‐year follow‐up to Levin and Hart's ( 2003 ) study, we observed the same children, now 9–11 years old, and their parents in the same risky decision‐making task. At the aggregate level the same pattern of means was observed across time periods. At the individual level the key variables were significantly correlated across time periods for both children and adults. Taken together with the results from the original study and earlier studies, these results solidify the following conclusions: children utilize both probability and outcome information in risky decision‐making; the tendency to make more risky choices to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain of equal magnitude, which is a major tenet of the leading theories of risky decision‐making, occurs for children as well as adults; children make more risky choices than adults; temperamental predictors of risky choice are valid for children as well as for adults. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's judgements of gambles: a disordinal violation of utility

Violations of utility are often attributed to people's differential reactions to risk versus certainty or uncertainty, or more generally to the way that people perceive outcomes and consequences. However, a core feature of utility is additivity, and violations may also occur because of averaging effects. Averaging is pervasive in intuitive riskless judgement throughout many domains, as shown with Anderson's Information Integration approach. The present study extends these findings to judgement under risk. Five‐ to 10‐year old children showed a disordinal violation of utility because they averaged the part worths of duplex gambles rather than add them, as adults do, and as normatively prescribed. Thus adults realized that two prizes are better than one, but children preferred a high chance to win one prize to the same gamble plus an additional small chance to win a second prize. This result suggests that an additive operator may not be a natural component of the intuitive psychological concept of expected value that emerges in childhood. The implications of a developmental perspective for the study of judgement and decision are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distinctive Preferences Toward Risk in the Substantive Domain of Sociality*

As with standard models of rationality, theorists generally treat prospect theory's demonstration of risk aversion in gains but risk tolerance in losses as domain‐general. Yet evolutionary psychology suggests that natural selection has designed a domain specific cognitive architecture—with systems specialized for some substantive domains but not others. Here we address risky choices through that lens asking whether humans' risk responses dispose them to enter social relationships even when doing so is counter to normative rationality and regardless of whether the “enter” versus “not enter” choice is framed as between gains and losses. Laboratory findings in five sites across three countries provide a positive answer to both possibilities. Participants could enter or not enter inherently risky social relationships. They were more willing to enter such relationships than rational choice models would predict and were equally so willing regardless of whether equivalent alternatives were framed as gains and as losses. With the “social context” extracted in otherwise identical games, participants' risk responses were consistent with prospect theory. The present findings suggest the possibility of adaptations designed to facilitate sociality—despite its risks and how those risks are framed.     

Common and distinct factors in decision making under ambiguity and risk: A psychometric study of individual differences

The relation between decision making under ambiguity and risky decision making was examined. In Studies 1 and 2, choices under ambiguity were measured for a large sample receiving an Ellsberg-type Ambiguity-Probability Tradeoff Task. Participants with extreme scores were recruited for Part 2 of each study which consisted of a risky decision making task (Study 1) or a series of decisions under ambiguity in “real life” scenarios (Study 2). Despite a time gap of up to 2 months, individual differences in scores on Part 1 predicted scores on Part 2. In Study 3 participants received in a single session several risky decision making tasks, several measures of decision making under ambiguity, and several personality scales related to uncertainty and decision making style. Taken together, the findings support the existence of a stable dispositional trait to reduce uncertainty in decision making but also task-specific differences related to gains and losses.     

Consequences of Regret Aversion: Effects of Expected Feedback on Risky Decision Making

Previous research has considered the question of how anticipated regret affects risky decision making. Several studies have shown that anticipated regret forces participants towards the safe option, showing risk-aversion. We argue that these results are due to the previous confounding of the riskiness of the options with the feedback received. Our design unconfounds these factors, and we predict that participants will always tend to makeregret-minimizingchoices (rather than risk-minimizing choices). We present three experiments using a “choices between equally valued alternatives” paradigm. In these experiments we manipulate whether the risky or safe gamble is the regret-minimizing choice by manipulating which gamble(s) will be resolved. As predicted, participants tend to choose the regret-minimizing gamble in both gains and losses and in both relatively high risk and relatively low risk pairs of gambles. We consider the implications of these results for the role of regret in choice behavior.     

Embracing Chance Tactically: A Different Perspective on Risk Taking

Although they value certainty, people are willing to take risks to avoid losses. Consequently, they are risk‐seeking in the domain of losses but risk‐avoidant in the domain of gains. This behavior, frequently demonstrated in framing experiments, is traditionally explained in terms of prospect theory. We suggest a different account whereby involving chance in one's decisions may serve a strategic impression‐formation function. In the domain of losses actors may embrace chance to distance themselves from the outcomes and deflect possible blame. Given potential gains, however, actors may avoid uncertainty to enhance their association with valued outcomes. We test this idea by manipulating the level of actors' personal responsibility for the decision outcomes. The results of four studies consistently showed that when personal responsibility is high, the original framing effect is replicated (i.e., greater risk‐taking when choices are framed in terms of losses rather than gains). However, when because of assigned role or decision circumstances, actors experience low personal responsibility for the outcomes, and the classic framing effect is eliminated. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of discussion on group and individual choices among bets

The effects of discussion on subsequent group and individual choices are studied in a situation where subjects choose between a sure gain of varying amount and five probability levels associated with larger gains of expected value equal to that of the sure gain. At the end of the experiment, a single bet, chosen at random, is played for money. Before discussion, subjects have to guess the percentage of similar, more risky and more cautious choices made by their peers for each of the six bets. As predicted by a majority-rule decision-making model significant risky shifts were observed for relatively low values of sure gain. For higher values, however, groups tended to be more cautious than individuals. The final private choices of individuals were significantly more risky than their initial decisions. Most individuals apparently thought they were at least as risky as most others. This finding was due, however, primarily to the responses of subjects who chose the highest risk-level (the ceiling effect) and, secondly, to the consistent tendency of most individuals to guess that others make the same choices as they themselves. It is concluded that majority influence seems a satisfactory explanation of group risky shifts observed in the present study, but it cannot account for modifications of group and individual choices in all risk-taking situations.     

Arrhenius vs. Ehrlich on immunochemistry: Decisions about scientific progress in the context of the Nobel prize

This study forms part of a larger research project examining the election process for the Nobel prizes for Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and the role and function of the prizes in early 20th century Swedish and international medicine. The purpose of the study is to clarify the decision-making process which led to the Nobel prize for Paul Ehrlich in 1908, ‘for work on immunity’. His award was preceded by the most dramatic conflict within the prize authority concerning any prizewinner prior to World War I, and thus is apt to illuminate both the implicit and explicit criteria and the strategies used in the prize deliberations. Ehrlich's chemical ideas on the immune response were criticized by the physical chemist Svante Arrhenius who recommended the application of his disciplines's methods and principles on immunological problems. This criticisms were brought into the Nobel prize debate by J.E. Johansson, a physiologist who asserted that Ehrlich's research was of little scientific value and therefore not worthy of a prize. Yet the majority of the Institute, led by its chairmam, the chemist K.A.H. Mörner, succeeded in awarding Ehrlich. An analysis of the controversy shows it to be primarily based upon (1) a difference of scientific styles between the antagonists, resulting in incongruous definitions of immunology as a research field, and of the proper aims and methods of immunological studies. Other factors influencing the final decision were (2) the Institute's negative reaction to what was considered an intrusion in medical Nobel prize matters by a chemist, (3) Arrhenius' and Johansson's diverging views on what kind of work should be awarded a prize, and (4) Johansson's position as a non-conformist at the Karolinska.     

The construction of risk in relationships: The role of framing in decisions about intimate relationships

Two studies examined the applicability of Kahneman and Tversky's (1979) notion of “framing” to decision making in romantic relationships. Using scenarios about hypothetical relationships, the results of Study 1 demonstrated that framing objectively identical alternatives in terms of losses versus gains affected participants' preferences for risky versus cautious actions. Furthermore, adult attachment style was found to moderate the impact of this framing effect. Study 2 examined individual differences in people's spontaneous tendencies to frame their feelings about their actual relationships in terms of losses or gains. Consistent with the findings of Study 1, attachment style was reliably associated with spontaneous framing. Secure individuals were most likely to represent their feelings in terms of a “gains frame” whereas fearful individuals were most likely to represent their feelings in terms of a “loss frame.”     

Human risky choice in a repeated-gambles procedure: an up-linkage replication of Lakshminarayanan, Chen and Santos (2011)

Lakshminarayanan et al. (J Exp Soc Psychol 47: 689–693, 2011) showed that when choice is between variable (risky) and fixed (safe) food amounts with the same expected values, capuchins prefer the safe alternative if choice is framed as a gain, but the risky alternative if it is framed as a loss. These results seem similar to those seen in human prospect-theory tests in choice between variable and fixed gains or losses. Based on this similarity, they interpreted their results as identifying a between-species commonality in cognitive function. In this report, we repeat their experiment with humans as subjects (an up-linkage replication). Whether choices were rewarded with candy or nickels, choice approximated indifference whether framed as gains or losses. Our data mirror those of others who found that when humans make risky choices within a repeated-trials procedure without verbal instruction about outcome likelihoods, preference biases seen in one-shot, language-guided, prospect-theory tests such as Tversky and Kahneman’s (Science 211:453–458, 1981) reflection effect may not appear. The disparity between our findings and those of Lakshminarayanan et al. suggests their study does not evidence a cognitive process shared by humans and capuchins.     

The evolution of decision-making under risk: Framing effects in monkey risk preferences

When making choices between risky options, human decision-makers exhibit a number of framing effects. One of the most prominent framing effects is the tendency for decision makers to evaluate gambles relative to a reference point, and to act risk-seeking when prospects are framed as losses but risk-averse when identical prospects are framed as gains. This tendency for risk-preferences to reverse between loss and gain frames has been termed the reflection effect, and is one of the primary predictions of Prospect Theory. Here, we explore whether non-human primates exhibit a similar reflection effect. Using a token-trading task, we show that capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) exhibit an analogous reversal of risk preferences depending on whether outcomes are presented as gains or losses, suggesting that similar framing effects also influence choice in non-human primates. This finding suggests that the mechanisms that drive framing effects in humans may be evolutionarily ancient, extending broadly across the primate order.     

Non-verbal communication enables children’s coordination in a “Stag Hunt” game

This study assessed the role of non-verbal communication in 4-year-old children’s decisions to coordinate with others. During a “Stag Hunt” game, the child and an adult individually and continually collected low-value prizes (hares). Occasionally, an alternative option of collecting a high-value prize (stag) cooperatively with the adult arose, but entailed a risk: a lone attempt on this prize by either player would leave that player empty handed. Children coordinated with the adult to obtain the high-value prize more often when that adult made mutual eye contact and smiled at them than when she attended to the prizes only. This suggests that neither verbal nor gestural communication are necessary for coordination: Minimal, non-verbal communication enables children’s coordination with others towards joint goals.     

How Affect Shapes Risky Choice: Distorted Probability Weighting Versus Probability Neglect

People's choices between prospects with relatively affect‐rich outcomes (e.g., medical side effects) can diverge markedly from their choices between prospects with relatively affect‐poor outcomes (e.g., monetary losses). We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying this “affect gap” in risky choice. One possibility is that affect‐rich prospects give rise to more distortion in probability weighting. Another is that they lead to the neglect of probabilities. To pit these two possibilities against each other, we fitted cumulative prospect theory (CPT) to the choices of individual participants, separately for choices between options with affect‐rich outcomes (adverse medical side effects) and options with affect‐poor outcomes (monetary losses); additionally, we tested a simple model of probability neglect, the minimax rule. The results indicated a qualitative difference in cognitive mechanisms between the affect‐rich and affect‐poor problems. Specifically, in affect‐poor problems, the large majority of participants were best described by CPT; in affect‐rich problems, the proportion of participants best described by the minimax rule was substantially higher. The affect gap persisted even when affect‐rich outcomes were supplemented by numerical information, thus providing no support for the thesis that choices in affect‐rich and affect‐poor problems diverge because the information provided in the former is nonnumerical. Our findings suggest that the traditional expectation‐based framework for modeling risky decision making may not readily generalize to affect‐rich choices. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risky visuomotor choices during rapid reaching in childhood

Many everyday actions are implicit gambles because imprecisions in our visuomotor systems place probabilities on our success or failure. Choosing optimal action strategies involves weighting the costs and gains of potential outcomes by their corresponding probabilities, and requires stable representations of one's own imprecisions. How this ability is acquired during development in childhood when visuomotor skills change drastically is unknown. In a rewarded rapid reaching task, 6‐ to 11‐year‐old children followed ‘risk‐seeking’ strategies leading to overly high point‐loss. Adults' performance, in contrast, was close to optimal. Children's errors were not explained by distorted estimates of value or probability, but may reflect different action selection criteria or immature integration of value and probability information while planning movements. These findings provide a starting point for understanding children's risk‐taking in everyday visuomotor situations when suboptimal choices can be dangerous. Moreover, children's risky visuomotor decisions mirror those reported for non‐motor gambles, raising the possibility that common processes underlie development across decision‐making domains.