fMRI evidence of a hot-cold empathy gap in hypothetical and real aversive choices

Abstract

Hypothetical bias is the common finding that hypothetical monetary values for "goods" are higher than real values. We extend this research to the domain of "bads" such as consumer and household choices made to avoid aversive outcomes (e.g., insurance). Previous evidence of hot-cold empathy gaps suggest food disgust is likely to be strongly underestimated in hypothetical (cold) choice. Depending on relative underestimation of food disgust and pain of spending, the hypothetical bias for aversive bad scan go in the typical direction for goods, disappear, or reverse in sign. We find that the bias is reversed in sign-subjects pay more to avoid bads when choice is real. fMRI shows that real choice more strongly activates striatum and medial prefrontal cortex (reward regions) and shows distinct activity in insula and amygdala (disgust and fear regions). The neural findings suggest ways to exogeneously manipulate or record brain activity in order to create better forecasts of actual consumer choice.Keywords: hypothetical bias, aversive bads, fMRI, medial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, decision making, neuroeconomics INTRODUCTIONReal choices are binding consequential commitments to a course of action, like undergoing surgery or putting a down payment on a house. Researchers in all social sciences seek to understand how real choices are made. However, in studying decisions, scientists and policy makers often have to settle for measuring hypothetical statements about what people would choose, rather than observing what people actually do choose.In marketing research, for example, hypothetical surveys are used to forecast sales of existing products, to test new products by asking consumers what they would buy, and to evaluate promotions (Silk and Urban, 1978;Urban et al., 1983;Infosino, 1986;Jamieson and Bass, 1989;Green and Srinivasan, 1990;Chandon et al., 2004;Raghubir and Greenleaf, 2006;Schlosser et al., 2006). In public economics and political science, survey data are used to establish the dollar value of goods that are not traded in markets (such as clean air or the prevention of oil spills), and to poll likely voters before an election (Crespi, 1989;Diamond and Hausman, 1994;Carson et al., 1996;Mortimer and Segal, 2008). Hypothetical choices are also necessary in some types of psychology and neuroscience experiments in which measuring real choices is impractical or unethical, especially in the domain of distressing moral choices (Greene et al., 2001(Greene et al., , 2004Kühberger et al., 2002;Hariri et al., 2006;Monterosso et al., 2007).The reliance on hypothetical choice data presumes either that hypothetical choices are a good and legitimate way to forecast real choices, or that there is some knowable relationship between the two types of choices, such that the hypothetical data can be adjusted to forecast real choice data accurately.Abbreviations: WTP, willingness-to-pay; CS, consumer surplus.However, many studies in behavioral economics have shown a substantial, systematic gap: typically, hypothetical valuations ar...

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“…These behavioral studies are accompanied with data that show differences in value representations between real and hypothetical choice situations 34, 35 .…”

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“…Therefore, it is normally favored outside of the lab where it is harder to recruit people to participate in an experiment at the same time. This is exactly the reason why the BDM mechanism is the favored mechanism in neuroimaging studies (see for example Kang and Camerer, 2013;Lehner et al, 2017;Linder et al, 2010;Tyson-Carr et al, 2018;Veling et al, 2017) where interaction between individuals while undertaking a brain scan is almost non-existent. Many neuroimaging studies cite Plassmann et al (2007) as the earliest demonstration of the use of the BDM task while subjects take a brain scan although it was clearly preceded by Grether et al (2007) and Rowe (2001).…”

When piloting health services interventions, what predicts real world behaviours? A systematic concept mapping review

“…Several factors suggested negative associations, including activation of 1) Normative beliefs, where real donation decisions were affected by consideration of what important others (e.g. family members) would think of their decisions in a way that hypothetical decisions were not [35]; 2) Social desirability, where a review of the literature shows that the wish to be seen favourably by the experimenter is stronger for hypothetical than realworld decisions [36]; 3) Anticipated or forecasted emotions, given the extensive literature that shows that people are poor at predicting how they will feel in the future; similar issues are discussed under related terms such as 'hot-cold empathy gap', [19,40] or 'predicted vs expected utility' [39]; 4) Deliberative mindset, where individuals making hypothetical decisions may be more likely to carefully weigh pros and cons than those making real-world decisions [14]; 5) Abstract construals, where hypothetical decisions are more likely to involve consideration of general vs specific features of the decision [14]; 6) Attribute non-attendance, where decision makers are more likely to consider all relevant attributes in real-world than hypothetical decisions [44]; 7) Risk aversion, where decision makers are often more likely to choose safer courses of action in real-world as compared to hypothetical situations [24,45,46]; 8) Implicit associations, where a greater amount of automatic associations related to less consistency [49].…”

“…Review [14,37,39] Empirical [19,[40][41][42] Deliberative Mindset Whether participants are evaluating the pros and cons of different options, versus focussing on information that is useful for them to complete a selected goal…”