Money does not stink: Using unpleasant odors as stimulus material changes risky decision making

Bettina Von Helversen,Géraldine Coppin,Benjamin Scheibehenne

doi:10.1002/bdm.2178

Bettina Von Helversen, Géraldine Coppin + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2178

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Abstract

AbstractOdors are strong elicitors of affect, and they play an important role in guiding human behavior, such as avoiding fire or spoiled food. However, little is known about how risky decision making changes when stimuli are olfactory. We investigated this question in an experimental study of risky decision making with unpleasant odors and monetary losses in a fully incentivized task with real outcomes. Odor and monetary decisions were matched so that monetary losses corresponded to the amount of money participants were willing to pay to avoid smelling an odor. Hierarchical Bayesian analyses using prospect theory show that participants were less sensitive to probabilities when gambling with odors than when gambling with money. These results highlight the importance of taking the sensory modality into account when studying risky decision making.

Highlights

Olfaction is a fundamental sense that plays an important role in guiding behavior in humans and other animals, for instance, by signaling when food might be dangerous to ingest or when there is a nearby environmental hazard, such as fire (Stevenson, 2009)
To analyze whether the differences in the observed decisions stem from a change in the probability weighting function as suggested by the literature on hypothetical affect-rich gambles, we modeled the observed choices with cumulative prospect theory (CPT)
To reach a better understanding of how decision making changes when outcomes are affect rich, unpleasant, olfactory stimuli compared with monetary losses, we asked participants in a laboratory experiment to make a series of decisions involving real consequences that were matched in subjective value

Summary

Introduction

Olfaction is a fundamental sense that plays an important role in guiding behavior in humans and other animals, for instance, by signaling when food might be dangerous to ingest or when there is a nearby environmental hazard, such as fire (Stevenson, 2009). In this vein, odors have been shown to play an important part in decision processes, including food choice (e.g., Demattè, Endrizzi, & Gasperi, 2014; Gaillet-Torrent, Sulmont-Rossé, Issanchou, Chabanet, & Chambaron, 2014) and selecting a partner (e.g., Ferdenzi, Delplanque, Atanassova, & Sander, 2016; Herz & Cahill, 1997). We investigated how the affective nature of odors changes the processes underlying risky choice using a computational modeling approach

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