Risk-seeking or impatient? Disentangling variance and time in hazardous behaviors

Abstract

Individual observations of risky behaviors present a paradox: individuals who take the most risks in terms of hazards (smoking, speeding, risky sexual behaviors) are also less likely to take risks when it comes to innovation, financial risks or entrepreneurship. Existing theories of risk-preferences do not explain these patterns. From a simple model, we argue that many decisions involving risk have a temporal dimension, and that this dimension is often the main determinant of individual choices. In many real life instances, risk taking amounts to damaging the individual's capital (whether embodied capital, financial capital, social reputation, etc.), which would affect her over a long period of time after the risky decision. In evolutionary terms, the marginal cost of this type of risky behavior depends on the relative importance of the future in the individual's fitness (e.g. her time horizon). Because the cost of a degradation of their capital will be paid for an effective shorter period of time, individuals with short time horizons will give less importance to this degradation. This approach explains patterns of behaviors observed across socio-economic groups and puts forward new approaches to prevent hazardous behaviors such as smoking.

Why and How Did Narrative Fictions Evolve? Fictions as Entertainment Technologies

“…Finally, behavioral sciences have shown that some cognitive preferences adaptively vary in response to changes in the local environment, especially changes in the level of resources ( Frankenhuis et al, 2016 ; Pepper and Nettle, 2017 ; Baumard, 2019 ; de Courson and Baumard, 2019 ; Mell et al, 2019 ; Boon-Falleur et al, 2020 ; De Courson and Nettle, 2021 ). For instance, higher levels of affluence, predictability and safeness makes people more future-oriented ( Mell et al, 2019 ; Boon-Falleur et al, 2020 ; Guillou et al, 2020 ), more optimist ( Nettle, 2012 ; Inglehart, 2020 ), more cooperative ( Baumard, 2019 ; Jacquet et al, 2019 ), more tolerant ( Inglehart, 2018 ), more romantic ( Baumard et al, 2021 ; Martins and Baumard, 2021 ), and more explorative ( Eliassen et al, 2007 ; Maspons et al, 2019 ; Gopnik, 2020 ). Improvements of living standards in human history, and in a wide range of different cultures, have indeed re-shaped many preferences in directions that are very consistent with this evolutionary account.…”

Determining the markers of a preference for imaginary worlds fiction calls for comparisons across kinds of fiction readers and forms of exploration

“…Spatial exploration for foraging involves several risks related to resource collection. More specifically, it involves crucial opportunity costs such as waiting costs, that is, the costs associated with delayed (as opposed to immediate) collection of resources (Boon-Falleur, Baumard, & André, 2020;Mell, Baumard, & André, 2021). Multiple optimal foraging models emphasize the discrepancy between the immediate risks of an exploratory strategy (e.g., the decrease of the resource levels during search time) and the positive value of the acquired information for future exploitation (e.g., Eliassen, Jørgensen, Mangel, & Giske, 2007;Maspons, Molowny-Horas, & Sol, 2019).…”

Why imaginary worlds? The psychological foundations and cultural evolution of fictions with imaginary worlds

“…Spatial exploration for foraging involves several risks related to resource collection. More specifically, it involves crucial opportunity costs such as waiting costs, that is, the costs associated with delayed (as opposed to immediate) collection of resources (Boon-Falleur, Baumard, & André, 2020; Mell, Baumard, & André, 2021). Multiple optimal foraging models emphasize the discrepancy between the immediate risks of an exploratory strategy (e.g., the decrease of the resource levels during search time) and the positive value of the acquired information for future exploitation (e.g., Eliassen, Jørgensen, Mangel, & Giske, 2007; Maspons, Molowny-Horas, & Sol, 2019).…”

“…As examples, the claim that exploration correlates with a preference for cognitive tasks is supported by an unpublished conference presentation , and the assertion that sci-fi readers are more politically progressive is supported by what appears to be conjecture from a literary scholar . Several other instances of non-empirical, theoretical evidence being cited in support of empirical claims occur throughout (e.g., regarding resource collection, cooperation and cheating, signalling cooperative partners; Boon-Falleur, Baumard, & André, 2020;Mell, Baumard, & André, 2019;Singh, 2019). Although it is laudable that the theory proposed generates testable empirical questions, the evidence cited in support of these empirical claims is largely unpublished or non-empirical in nature.…”