Sozial-, Wirtschafts- und Entscheidungspsychologie


Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology Blog

Archive for May, 2018

Emmanouil Konstantinidis

On Thursday (31 May), Emmanouil Konstantinidis, Centre for Decision Research, University of Leeds, visits Basel to give his presentation in the SWE Colloquium series.

The path to risky intertemporal choice: Preference accumulation, sequential evaluation, and delayed optimism

Previous research on the effects of probability (risk) and delay on decision-making has focused on examining each dimension separately, and hence little is known about when these dimensions are combined into a single choice option. Here, we attempt a threefold decomposition of the cognitive, psychological, and normative/descriptive underpinnings of risky intertemporal choice, including the application of sequential accumulator modelling (the Linear Ballistic Accumulator; LBA), and the use of process-tracing experimental designs. We examined the order in which information is acquired (payoff, probability, delay), transitions between information items, and how preferences are constructed across time. The results point towards a dimension-wise evaluation of risky and delayed prospects. We used these observations to inform the development of new models for risky intertemporal choice and to provide novel experimental and behavioural directions for the study of the combined effect of risk and delay on preferential choice.

Oliver Genschow

On Thursday 24 May, Oliver Genschow (University of Cologne) visits Basel to speak in the SWE colloquium.

Let’s unravel the social chameleon: Investigations on the underlying processes of imitation

As the saying goes “monkey see, monkey do”, individuals have the tendency to automatically imitate others. Indeed, past research has shown that individuals imitate a wide range of different behaviors including speech patterns, movements, gestures and emotions. Such imitative behavior fulfills an important social function in the sense that it bonds human more strongly together by fostering liking, feelings of affiliation and pro-social behavior. Despite such research, the exact mechanisms underlying human imitation are still a matter of investigation. In order to shed light onto the mechanisms underlying imitation I focus on two main questions. First, is imitation a goal-based or a movement-based phenomenon? Second, is imitation a reactive, or rather a predictive phenomenon? With respect to the first question, I will present data suggesting that differences in psychological distance moderate the degree to which individuals imitate in a goal-based or movement-based manner. With respect to the second question, I will argue that imitation processes might already be initiated as soon as an observer can anticipate what another person is willing to do.

Stefano Palminteri

Stefano Palminteri, Human Reinforcement Learning team Institut,
National de la Recherche Médical & Ecole Normale Supérieure, visits to give a talk as part of the SWE Colloquium on Thursday 17 May.

State-dependent evaluation and confirmatory biases in reward and punishment learning

Valence is a fundamental concept in the learning, decision-making and emotion literature.  However, in the reinforcement learning context, different facets of this psychological concept are often confounded and/or ill-defined. In the present talk we theoretically propose, mathematically formalize and experimentally investigate two different facets of valence: ‘contextual’ and ‘informational’. Combining imaging and modeling techniques in a series of studies, we found that these different aspects have dissociable computational and neural correlates, and exert powerful effects on human learning behavior.

perceived truths: LaTeX

I’ve been wanting to switch from MS Word to something that can make my writing life easier by letting me automatically read in figures and tables onto my pdf – something like LaTeX! After a couple of days of this I have come to the following “perceived truth” (inspired by the Süddeutschen Zeitung Magazin’s feature Gefuehlte Wahrheit)…

risk preference: a view from psychology

The latest issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives has a Symposium on Risk in Economics and Psychology with four contributions, including our own perspective! One novel contribution of our piece is that we quantify the temporal stability of both behavioural (monetary lotteries) and self-reported risk preference (“How risk taking are you in general?”) over periods of years (up to a decade). Self-reports trump lotteries by quite a bit (see figure below)…

Risk Preference: A View from Psychology

Psychology offers conceptual and analytic tools that can advance the discussion on the nature of risk preference and its measurement in the behavioral sciences. We discuss the revealed and stated preference measurement traditions, which have coexisted in both psychology and economics in the study of risk preferences, and explore issues of temporal stability, convergent validity, and predictive validity with regard to measurement of risk preferences. As for temporal stability, do risk preference as a psychological trait show a degree of stability over time that approximates what has been established for other major traits, such as intelligence, or, alternatively, are they more similar in stability to transitory psychological states, such as emotional states? Convergent validity refers to the degree to which different measures of a psychological construct capture a common underlying characteristic or trait. Do measures of risk preference all capture a unitary psychological trait that is indicative of risky behavior across various domains, or do they capture various traits that independently contribute to risky behavior in specific areas of life, such as financial, health, and recreational domains? Predictive validity refers to the extent to which a psychological trait has power in forecasting behavior. Intelligence and major personality traits have been shown to predict important life outcomes, such as academic and professional achievement, which suggests there could be studies of the short- and long-term outcomes of risk preference—something lacking in current psychological (and economic) research. We discuss the current empirical knowledge on risk preferences in light of these considerations.

Mata, R., Frey, R., Richter, D., Schupp, J., & Hertwig, R. (2018). Risk Preference: A View from Psychology. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 32(2), 155–172. http://doi.org/10.1257/jep.32.2.155

risk preference and endogenous hormone levels

Jenny Kurath (former student and research assistant in our group) and I have a new paper out on the links between endogenous hormonal levels (testosterone, estradiol, cortisol) and risk preference (broadly defined, and including self-report and behavioural measures of risk taking, and related constructs, such as impulsivty or sensation seeking). In a nutshell, the literature suggests small positive links between testosterone and estradiol (around .1) but not cortisol (average estimate pretty much zero). We did not find evidence for differences between types of measures (self-report, behaviour) or constructs (e.g., risk taking, sensation seeking). Lots of heterogeneity across studies (particularly for cortisol) but no evidence of publication bias (e.g., p-hacking) for any of the effects. According to these effect sizes, around 90% or more of studies on testosterone and estradiol have been underpowered… It’s very nice to see this work partly stemming from Jenny’s BSc thesis published and we hope it is informative for future work examining the biological basis of risk preference!

Individual differences in risk taking and endogeneous levels of testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol: A systematic literature search and three independent meta-analyses

Hormonal levels have been hypothesized to serve as proximal biological mechanisms underlying individual differences in risk taking. We conducted a systematic literature search and independent meta-analyses to assess the link between endogenous testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol levels and risk-taking related constructs (i.e., risk-taking propensity, impulsivity, sensation seeking, novelty seeking). We found small correlations between risk-taking constructs and testosterone (r = 0.12, 95% CI = 0.08, 0.16, 108 effect sizes, k = 49, N = 9112) as well as estradiol (r = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.02, 0.18, 48 effect sizes, k = 17, N = 2900), but not cortisol (r = -0.01, 95% CI = -0.11, 0.09, 60 effect sizes, k = 27, N = 3880). Overall, these results suggest a biological foundation for individual differences in risk taking. We point out some limitations of past studies and make recommendations for future work investigating the hormonal basis of individual differences in risk taking.

Kurath, J, & Mata, R (2018). Individual differences in risk taking and endogeneous levels of testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol: A systematic literature search and three independent meta-analyses. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.05.003

into the wild

It’s that time of the year when we invite alumni from our MSc program and ask them to tell us about their experiences in the “wild”. Looking forward to hearing from Nadia Balz (Baloise), Fiona Oertig (Roche), and Kevin Meyer (Nexus Personalberatung), Monday, May 7, 2018, at 18:30.

We’ll also have an information event about the MSc program in Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology right before starting at 17:45.