Abstract
A large number of studies have found that the ambient temperature shows its inadvertent impact on human’s mind and behaviors. There is a reason to believe that risk decision-making, a human advanced cognitive function, will also be affected by the temperature and lead to judgment bias. In this study, the relationship between ambient temperature and risk taking was discussed by manipulating ambient temperature in the laboratory. Participants were instructed to complete the risk taking test (the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, BART) on the computer in three different ambient temperature environments (Hot/Cold/Comfortable). Results indicate that: when ambient temperature is high, the individual will pursue high-risk and high-yield options, and when the ambient temperature is low, the individual tends to be conservative facing risk options.
Highlights
Temperature has a clear physiological impact on human beings
The results showed that the dependent variable Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) (p = 0.033 < 0.05) reached a significant level after controlling irrelevant variable above
The perspective of resource depletion is based on individual cognitive ability is limited, the level of environmental temperature directly affect how much mental resources can be used
Summary
Different temperatures will bring different feelings: one will feel anxious during the hot weather, and become shivering when it’s cold. The concept of “cold” or “hot” can be used to describe the temperature, and often used to describe the person’s mental activities or behaviors. Linguists have found that people often use temperature phrases to compare to the inner world of mind. From the point of view of decision-making, we will call people make a choice under the careful thought to be “keep cool”. For a choice without any consideration we usually call it “hot-headed”.
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