Abstract
The ending effect describes the phenomenon that at the end of a series of repeated risky decision-making tasks, participants become more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior. Past research has suggested that the ending effect might be caused by a motivational shift induced by changes in time perception. Previous studies mainly tested this phenomenon in a binary decision-making setting (e.g., a decision-making task usually includes two alternatives). However, none of these prior studies included safe options and risky options that differed in risk levels. To address this knowledge gap, the present study replicated the ending effect in a repeated decision-making task that included both a safe option and risky options that differed in risk levels (N = 104). We found that at the end of the decision-making task, participants became more likely to engage in risk-taking and to favor the option with the highest risk. Further, we found that the investment likelihood and investment amount of high-risk options both increased significantly at the ending. In addition, a shift in favoring the safe option emerged in the noninformed condition at the end. We also found that the emotional motivation in the last round could predict the increased preference for high-risk at the ending. This study extended previous findings on the ending effect by adopting a more complex decision-making scenario and, more broadly, helped further our understanding of the psychological consequences of perceived endings.
Highlights
Factors that influence the risky decision-making of individuals have been intensively investigated over the past decades
In the study of Xing et al (2018), participants had to choose between a risky investment option and a safe option. This raises a question: in a decision scenario wherein decision-makers are provided with a safe option and risky options that vary in risk level, which option will decision-makers favor? far, this question has only been addressed in the early research on horse racing and the results are mixed
To the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have investigated the ending effect in a decision-making scenario that involves both a safe option and risky options that vary in risk levels
Summary
Factors that influence the risky decision-making of individuals have been intensively investigated over the past decades (for a review, refer to Birnbaum, 2008). The ending effect, known as the last race effect, suggests that at the end of a series of decision-making tasks, individuals tend to engage in risk-taking behavior (McKenzie et al, 2016; Xing et al, 2018, 2019). Increased risk-taking at the end has been detected in both real-life horse racing (Ali, 1977; Asch et al, 1982; Metzger, 1985; Kopelman and Minkin, 1991) and in laboratory experiments (McKenzie et al, 2016; Xing et al, 2018, 2019).
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