Incidental fear cues increase monetary loss aversion.

Abstract

In many everyday decisions, people exhibit loss aversion-a greater sensitivity to losses relative to gains of equal size. Loss aversion is thought to be (at least partly) mediated by emotional--in particular, fear-related--processes. Decision research has shown that even incidental emotions, which are unrelated to the decision at hand, can influence decision making. The effect of incidental fear on loss aversion, however, is thus far unclear. In two studies, we experimentally investigated how incidental fear cues, presented during (Study 1) or before (Study 2) choices to accept or reject mixed gambles over real monetary stakes, influence monetary loss aversion. We find that the presentation of fearful faces, relative to the presentation of neutral faces, increased risk aversion-an effect that could be attributed to increased loss aversion. The size of this effect was moderated by psychopathic personality: Fearless dominance, in particular its interpersonal facet, but not self-centered impulsivity, attenuated the effect of incidental fear cues on loss aversion, consistent with reduced fear reactivity. Together, these results highlight the sensitivity of loss aversion to the affective context.

Effects of loss aversion on neural responses to loss outcomes: An event-related potential study

“…Further, a recent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study revealed a positive correlation between loss aversion and grey matter volume in amygdala, thalamus and striatum (Canessa et al, 2013). Together, the above results suggest that loss aversion may operate as a relatively stable feature during decision making (Glöckner & Pachur, 2012), although loss aversion can also be modulated by the task or context (Schulreich, Gerhardt, & Heekeren, 2016;Sokol-Hessner et al, 2013;Stancak et al, 2015).…”

“…where g x and l x refer to the monetary amount that participants could win or lose and c x represents the alternative sure outcome. The probability to win the uncertain gamble is represented by p. In the present study, we employed the common simplification of linear probability weighting (Tom et al 2007;Canessa et al 2013;Schulreich et al 2016;Sokol-Hessner, 2009 and probabilities of gains and losses were equal throughout the experiment at (1 p) 0.5 p   …”

Increased Loss Aversion in Unmedicated Patients with Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder

“…In particular, an investigation of loss processing using a task not directly invoking patient symptoms could elucidate core mechanisms contributing to patients’ hypersensitivity to possible negative events, which could serve as potential targets for novel treatment approaches. In this study, we investigated loss aversion in OCD using a well-established behavioral paradigm where participants accept or reject 50/50 gambles with varying gain/loss values [developed by Tom et al ( 25 ) and utilized by several investigators ( 9 , 11 , 20 , 22 , 26 , 29 )]. Our sample included groups of medicated and unmedicated OCD patients and healthy control participants across two study sites.…”

Neural correlates of cue-induced changes in decision-making distinguish subjects with gambling disorder from healthy controls

“…The modulating influence of conditioned cues on instrumental behavior (i.e. increasing the vigor with which a behavior is displayed or increasing the likelihood of choosing a certain option) has been termed Pavlovian-toinstrumental transfer (PIT) (Cartoni, Balleine, & Baldassarre, 2016;De Tommaso, Mastropasqua, & Turatto, 2018;Schulreich, Gerhardt, & Heekeren, 2016;Talmi, Seymour, Dayan, & Dolan, 2008). PIT is one of the key effects deepening our understanding of cuecontrolled behaviors (Dickinson & Balleine, 1994;Dickinson Anthony & Balleine Bernard, 2002;Holmes, Marchand, & Coutureau, 2010;Niv, Daw, Joel, & Dayan, 2007).…”