Development and Validation of a New Risk-Taking Game: Helsinki Aiming Task (HAT)

Area of Science:

• Behavioral economics
• Psychological assessment
• Decision science

Background:

• Risk-taking behavior is crucial in decision-making.
• Existing measures may not capture fine-grained responses to immediate outcomes.
• A novel tool is needed to assess sensitivity to penalties and rewards.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce and validate the Helsinki Aiming Task (HAT), a new game for measuring risk-taking.
• Examine HAT's construct validity and convergent validity with other measures.
• Assess HAT's ability to capture responses to varying penalty levels and "gun" inaccuracy.

Main Methods:

• Developed HAT, a shooting game with adjustable "gun" inaccuracy and penalty levels.
• Conducted four studies (N=188 total) involving HAT performance, comparisons with Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), and self-report measures.
• Analyzed risk-taking indicators (aiming point, accrued penalties) and sensitivity to reward/punishment.

Main Results:

• Participants in HAT adjusted their behavior (became more cautious) with increased penalties and inaccuracy.
• HAT risk indicators showed weak correlation with BART but strong association with self-reported risk-taking.
• HAT's measure of reinforcement sensitivity explained self-reported risk-taking better than BART.

Conclusions:

• HAT is a valid new tool for measuring behavioral risk-taking, particularly responses to immediate positive and negative outcomes.
• HAT provides a nuanced assessment of reward and punishment sensitivity in decision-making.
• HAT offers a valuable alternative or complement to existing risk assessment methods like BART.