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Increased social distance makes people more risk-neutral
Qingzhou Sun1, Yongfang Liu1, Huanren Zhang2
1a East China Normal University.
The Journal of Social Psychology
|September 30, 2016
Summary
Increased social distance makes individuals more risk-neutral, particularly when considering gains. This suggests social distance influences decision-making in financial and personal choices.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral economics
- Social psychology
- Decision science
Background:
- Individuals exhibit consistent risk aversion for gains and risk seeking for losses.
- Understanding factors influencing these predictable risk preferences is crucial for behavioral modeling.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how manipulating social distance affects established risk preference patterns.
- To determine if individuals become more or less risk-averse/seeking when decisions benefit others at varying social distances.
Main Methods:
- Three experiments were conducted to manipulate social distance.
- Participants made decisions in gain and loss domains under different social distance conditions (self vs. other, known vs. unknown, close vs. distant friend).
Main Results:
- Experiments 1 and 3 demonstrated that increased social distance led to more risk-neutral behavior.
- This risk-neutral shift was more pronounced in the gain domain compared to the loss domain.
- Experiment 2 did not yield significant findings regarding the effect of social distance.
Conclusions:
- Social distance significantly influences individual risk preferences, shifting behavior towards risk neutrality.
- The impact of social distance on risk preferences is domain-specific, affecting gains more than losses.
- These findings highlight the importance of considering social context in decision-making theories.
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