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Related Experiment Videos

Positive Arousal Increases Individuals' Preferences for Risk.

Andrea Galentino1,2, Nicolao Bonini3, Lucia Savadori3

  • 1Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.

Frontiers in Psychology
|January 10, 2018
PubMed
Summary

Positive arousal increases risk-taking in financial decisions. Individuals experiencing higher positive arousal chose riskier options and took longer to decide compared to those with lower arousal.

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Economics
  • Neuroscience
  • Decision Science

Background:

  • Limited understanding of positive arousal's impact on decision-making compared to negative arousal.
  • Arousal, a state of alertness, can influence cognitive processes and choices.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effect of manipulated positive arousal on individual choices under risk.
  • To determine if pleasant arousal influences preference for risky versus safer economic options.

Main Methods:

  • Participants were randomly assigned to low or high positive arousal conditions.
  • An incentivized task involved choosing between two-outcome monetary lotteries with equal expected value but varying risk (outcome variance).
  • Lottery probabilities were set at 50% for each outcome.
Keywords:
arousaldecision makingpositive affectpositive arousalrisk preferencesrisk-taking

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Participants in the high arousal group selected the riskier lottery significantly more often than the low arousal group.
  • Individuals in the high arousal condition also took longer to make their choices.
  • Positive arousal shifted preferences towards riskier economic choices.

Conclusions:

  • Pleasant arousing cues can alter decision-making, promoting a shift towards riskier options.
  • The findings highlight the role of emotional states, specifically positive arousal, in economic decision-making under uncertainty.
  • Future research could explore the neural mechanisms underlying this effect.