Anxious ultimatums: How anxiety disorders affect socioeconomic behaviour

Abstract

Although the role of emotion in socioeconomic decision making is increasingly recognised, the impact of specific emotional disorders, such as anxiety disorders, on these decisions has been surprisingly neglected. Twenty anxious patients and twenty matched controls completed a commonly used socioeconomic task (the Ultimatum Game), in which they had to accept or reject monetary offers from other players. Anxious patients accepted significantly more unfair offers than controls. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of recent models of anxiety, in particular the importance of interpersonal factors and assertiveness in an integrated model of decision making. Finally, we were able to show that pharmacological serotonin used to treat anxious symptomatology tended to normalise decision making, further confirming and extending the role of serotonin in co-operation, prosocial behaviour, and social decision making. These results show, for the first time, a different pattern of socioeconomic behaviour in anxiety disordered patients, in addition to the known memory, attentional and emotional biases that are part of this pathological condition.

Processing of fair and unfair offers in the ultimatum game under social observation

“…This may suggests that while observation may have sensitized the performance monitoring system, this effect was not strong enough to also manifest in overt behavior. In view of evidence for altered behavioral UG performance in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder53, it stands to reason that behavioral effects may only emerge in populations with clinical levels of social anxiety or diagnosed social anxiety disorder.…”

Cooperative Behavior in the Ultimatum Game and Prisoner’s Dilemma Depends on Players’ Contributions

“…Previous studies have reported that anxious traits lead to greater cooperation (Clark et al, 2013) and individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders are more likely to display cooperative behavior (McClure et al, 2007) and accept significantly more unfair offers than healthy controls (Grecucci et al, 2013). …”

The temporal course of the influence of anxiety on fairness considerations

“…For example, anxiety disorders are associated with spousal conflict (Whisman, Sheldon, & Goering, ). This social impairment may result from decision‐making biases that lead anxious individuals to choose avoidance strategies in interpersonal situations (Grecucci et al., ). Indeed, levels of anxiety are negatively correlated with the willingness to communicate with strangers (Duronto, Nishida, & Nakayama, ; Samochowiec & Florack, ).…”