Irwin P. Levin

The Interaction of Experiential and Situational Factors and Gender in a Simulated Risky Decision-Making Task

Abstract In this study, 110 students responded to a series of gambling options described in terms of amount of initial investment, amount to be won, and probability of winning or losing. Half of th...

Personality traits and risky decision-making in a controlled experimental task: an exploratory study

This paper first discusses historic differences in the way that personality psychologists and decision-making researchers have studied risk-taking, and then describes a preliminary study that combines elements of the two approaches. Using an Italian sample of varying age levels, this study examined the relations among personality traits (the Big-Five), demographics (age and gender) and risk-taking. Separate measures of risk-taking in a controlled experimental task were derived for trials in which subjects could achieve a gain and for trials in which subjects could avoid a loss. Personality trait effects differed for gains and for losses, and they differed depending on whether demographics were taken into account. Personality factors predicted risk-taking primarily in the domain of gains where high scores on Openness to Experience were associated with greater risk-taking and high scores on Neuroticism were associated with less risk-taking. However, there was a tendency for Neuroticism to have the opposite effect on risk-taking for losses where high scores were associated with greater risk-taking.

Need for Cognition and Choice Framing Effects

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that framing biases in decision making would affect more strongly individuals with relatively low levels of need for cognition (NC). Participants were classified as high or low NC based on responses to a standard scale and subsequently were exposed to one of two framings of a choice problem. Different choice problems were used in each experiment, modeled after those developed by Kahneman and Tversky. Experiment 1 employed a monetary task and Experiment 2 a medical decision-making task. Consistent with expectations, framing effects on choice were observed in both experiments, but only for low NC participants. High NC participants were unaffected by problem framing, showing that they were less susceptible to attempts to alter their frame of reference.

Functional Dissociations of Risk and Reward Processing in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Making a risky decision is a complex process that involves evaluation of both the value of the options and the associated risk level. Yet the neural processes underlying these processes have not so far been clearly identified. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a task that simulates risky decisions, we found that the dorsal region of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was activated whenever a risky decision was made, but the degree of this activity across subjects was negatively correlated with their risk preference. In contrast, the ventral MPFC was parametrically modulated by the received gain/loss, and the activation in this region was positively correlated with an individuals risk preference. These results extend existing neurological evidence by showing that the dorsal and ventral MPFC convey different decision signals (i.e., aversion to uncertainty vs. approach to rewarding outcomes), where the relative strengths of these signals determine behavioral decisions involving risk and uncertainty.

Neural Correlates of Adaptive Decision Making for Risky Gains and Losses

Do decisions about potential gains and potential losses require different neural structures for advantageous choices? In a lesion study, we used a new measure of adaptive decision making under risk to examine whether damage to neural structures subserving emotion affects an individuals ability to make adaptive decisions differentially for gains and losses. We found that individuals with lesions to the amygdala, an area responsible for processing emotional responses, displayed impaired decision making when considering potential gains, but not when considering potential losses. In contrast, patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area responsible for integrating cognitive and emotional information, showed deficits in both domains. We argue that this dissociation provides evidence that adaptive decision making for risks involving potential losses may be more difficult to disrupt than adaptive decision making for risks involving potential gains. This research further demonstrates the role of emotion in decision competence.

The Impact of Prior Risk Experiences on Subsequent Risky Decision-Making: The Role of the Insula

Risky decision-making is significantly affected by homeostatic states associated with different prior risk experiences, yet the neural mechanisms have not been well understood. Using functional MRI, we examined how gambling decisions and their underlying neural responses were modulated by prior risk experiences, with a focus on the insular cortex since it has been implicated in interoception, emotion and risky decision-making. Fourteen healthy young participants were scanned while performing a gambling task that was designed to simulate daily-life risk taking. Prior risk experience was manipulated by presenting participants with gambles that they were very likely to accept or gambles that they were unlikely to accept. A probe gamble, which was sensitive to individuals risk preference, was presented to examine the effect of prior risk experiences (Risk vs. Norisk) on subsequent risky decisions. Compared to passing on a gamble (Norisk), taking a gamble, especially winning a gamble (Riskwin), was associated with significantly stronger activation in the insular and dorsal medial prefrontal cortices. Decision making after Norisk was more risky and more likely to recruit activation of the insular and anterior cingulate cortices. This insular activity during decision making predicted the extent of risky decisions both within- and across-subjects, and was also correlated with an individuals personality trait of urgency. These findings suggest that the insula plays an important role in activating representations of homeostatic states associated with the experience of risk, which in turn exerts an influence on subsequent decisions.

Information framing effects in social and personal decisions

Abstract Information framing effects are defined when the manner in which stimuli are labeled or framed affects their evaluation. Two experiments are reported in which level of personal involvement, as well as information frame, is manipulated. In Experiment 1 the incidence of cheating was rated higher by subjects receiving the statement, “65% of the students had cheated during their college career” than by subjects receiving the statement “35% of the students had never cheated.” However, subjects were not influenced by these statements when expressing the likelihood of turning in a cheater or changing their own answers on an exam. In Experiment 2 subjects who were told that a new medical treatment had a “50% success rate” rated the treatment as more effective and were more apt to recommend it to others, including members of their immediate family, than subjects who were told that the treatment had a “50% failure rate.” Results were discussed in terms of the robustness of the framing effect when external sources of information are necessary to an informed judgment. An “anchoring and adjustment” model was used to explain the observed framing effects.

Associative effects of information framing

Previous research has demonstrated that the way in which information is presented or framed affects the evaluation and choice of objects such as consumer purchases. In the present study, more favorable associations to a purchase of ground beef were produced when the beef was described in terms of “percent lean” rather than “percent fat.” It is suggested that such associations to stimulus labels serve as mediators of the effects of information frame on judgment and decision making.

Framing effects in judgment tasks with varying amounts of information

Abstract Subjects were asked to make evaluations in each of three tasks—a gambling task, a consumer judgment task, and a student evaluation task. Each task involved two important attributes, but information about one attribute was missing on some trials. Half of the subjects received a version of the task in which a key attribute was presented in positive terms (e.g., probability of winning a gamble) and half received a version in which that same attribute was presented in negative terms (e.g., probability of losing a gamble). Even though the information was objectively equivalent in the two versions of each task, there were two significant framing effects. (1) In all tasks, responses to two-attribute stimuli were more favorable in the positive condition than in the negative condition. (2) When the key attribute was missing, evaluations of one-attribute stimuli relative to evaluations of two-attribute stimuli were lower in the positive condition than in the negative condition. Results were discussed in terms of the constructs of prospect theory and information integration theory.

External validity tests of laboratory studies of information integration

Abstract Laboratory research aimed at increased understanding of judgment and decision-making behavior has been criticized for lack of external validity. To counter this criticism, the present paper describes a number of laboratory studies of information integration that demonstrate that responses to independent variable manipulations in the laboratory are meaningfully related to factors external to the task and are predictive of decisions made outside the laboratory. Suggestions are made for how researchers can increase the generalizability and external validity of their results by taking into account differences between the laboratory setting and the natural environment.