Unrestrained
Safety in Numbers: Why the Mere Physical Presence of Others Affects Risk-taking Behaviors
Eileen Chou & Loran Nordgren
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, forthcoming
Abstract:
As social mammals, being in a group signals a state of relative security. Risk-taking behavior in other social mammals formed the basis for our prediction that the mere physical presence of others, absent any social interaction, would create a psychological state of security that, in turn, would promote greater risk-taking behavior. We investigated whether, why, and when the mere physical presence of others affects risk-taking behaviors in three contexts: acceptance of greater financial volatility, attitudes toward risky gambles, and actual gambling behaviors. Results indicate that people in the mere physical presence of others make riskier decisions than people making identical decisions alone, and that feelings of security were the psychological mechanism behind this effect. Our results also suggest that the effect is contingent on whether people are surrounded by others who belong to the same social group. A meta-analysis across all studies presented in this research reveals a highly reliable mere-presence effect. Together, these results demonstrate that the mere physical presence of others can have a potent impact on risk-taking behaviors.
---------------------
Melissa Sturge-Apple et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Children from different socioeconomic backgrounds have differing abilities to delay gratification, and impoverished children have the greatest difficulties in doing so. In the present study, we examined the role of vagal tone in predicting the ability to delay gratification in both resource-rich and resource-poor environments. We derived hypotheses from evolutionary models of children's conditional adaptation to proximal rearing contexts. In Study 1, we tested whether elevated vagal tone was associated with shorter delay of gratification in impoverished children. In Study 2, we compared the relative role of vagal tone across two groups of children, one that had experienced greater impoverishment and one that was relatively middle-class. Results indicated that in resource-rich environments, higher vagal tone was associated with longer delay of gratification. In contrast, high vagal tone in children living in resource-poor environments was associated with reduced delay of gratification. We interpret the results with an eye to evolutionary-developmental models of the function of children's stress-response system and adaptive behavior across varying contexts of economic risk.
---------------------
Self-Esteem, Financial Knowledge and Financial Behavior
Ning Tang & Andrew Baker
Journal of Economic Psychology, June 2016, Pages 164-176
Abstract:
Financial knowledge is an important but insufficient driver of responsible financial behavior. Having a positive evaluation of oneself may also be essential for individuals to initiate and persist with the daunting process of financial management. In this study, we distinguish subjective financial knowledge from objective financial knowledge, and we propose that self-esteem relates to financial behavior both directly as well as indirectly through subjective financial knowledge. Results based on a nationally representative dataset of U.S. adults suggest that self-esteem significantly relates to individual financial behavior after controlling for financial knowledge and other socioeconomic factors. The association between self-esteem and financial behavior could be both direct and indirect through subjective financial knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of psychological traits such as self-esteem in explaining financial behavior difference. Its implications are discussed.
---------------------
The Effect of Negative Affect on Cognition: Anxiety, Not Anger, Impairs Executive Function
Grant Shields et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is often assumed that negative affect impairs the executive functions that underlie our ability to control and focus our thoughts. However, support for this claim has been mixed. Recent work has suggested that different negative affective states like anxiety and anger may reflect physiologically separable states with distinct effects on cognition. However, the effects of these 2 affective states on executive function have never been assessed. As such, we induced anxiety or anger in participants and examined the effects on executive function. We found that anger did not impair executive function relative to a neutral mood, whereas anxiety did. In addition, self-reports of induced anxiety, but not anger, predicted impairments in executive function. These results support functional models of affect and cognition, and highlight the need to consider differences between anxiety and anger when investigating the influence of negative affect on fundamental cognitive processes such as memory and executive function.