Abstract
Why does decision making differ among individuals? People sometimes make seemingly inconsistent decisions with lower expected (monetary) utility even when objective information of probabilities and reward are provided. It is noteworthy, however, that a certain proportion of people do not provide anomalous responses, choosing the alternatives with higher expected utility, thus appearing to be more “rational.” We investigated the genetic and environmental influences on these types of individual differences in decision making using a classical Allais problem task. Participants were 1,199 Japanese adult twins aged 20–47. Univariate genetic analysis revealed that approximately a third of the Allais problem response variance was explained by genetic factors and the rest by environmental factors unique to individuals and measurement error. The environmental factor shared between families did not contribute to the variance. Subsequent multivariate genetic analysis clarified that decision making using the expected utility theory was associated with general intelligence and that the association was largely mediated by the same genetic factor. We approach the mechanism underlying two types of “rational” decision making from the perspective of genetic correlations with cognitive abilities.
Highlights
We know that human decision making is often inconsistent and violates the rational assumptions of economics (e.g., Allais, 1953, 1979; Ellsberg, 1961)
Cesarini et al (2012) examined the association between behavioral anomalies and cognitive abilities. They found that some individual differences in anomalies were correlated with cognitive ability as a result of a common genetic basis, not because of a common environmental function. Considering this background, we predict that human decision making in economic behavior is influenced by genetics and that the genetic factor is at least in part derived from genetic influences on cognitive ability
Bivariate genetic analyses of the relationship between the Allais problem response combinations and the four cognitive ability measures revealed that the choice of BD was significantly correlated with full IQ (r = 0.34), Spatial IQ (r = 0.57), and syllogistic inference ability (r = 0.28) at the genetic factor level, but no correlation was found at the environmental factor level (Table 4)
Summary
We know that human decision making is often inconsistent and violates the rational assumptions of economics (e.g., Allais, 1953, 1979; Ellsberg, 1961). Cesarini et al (2012) examined the association between behavioral anomalies and cognitive abilities They found that some individual differences in anomalies (illusion of control, insensitivity to sample size, and representativeness) were correlated with cognitive ability as a result of a common genetic basis, not because of a common environmental function. Considering this background, we predict that human decision making in economic behavior is influenced by genetics and that the genetic factor is at least in part derived from genetic influences on cognitive ability. Bivariate genetic analyses were conducted to clarify the genetic and environmental overlap between cognitive ability and decision making
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