The Effects of Decision Makers' Roles and Related Variables on Risk Preferences

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Many studies have examined the self-other decision making bias, but few have considered the role of self-esteem in the bias. Conversely, many studies have examined how self-esteem affects risk preference, but almost none have considered the impact of the decision maker's role. In addition, these studies made few allowances for the gain and loss frameworks of decision tasks. In this study, the complex relationships among decision makers' roles, self-esteem, and the frameworks of decision tasks are explored. 111 undergraduate subjects with high or low self-esteem were asked to either make decisions for themselves or make decisions for others on a risk preference questionnaire involving twelve items under gain or loss task frameworks. Implicit self-esteem levels were tested with IAT technology. The results of the experiment show that (1) Subjects were more willing to take risks when making decisions for others than when making decisions for themselves in the gain framework but not in the loss framework; (2) Subjects were more willing to take risks when making decisions for others than when making decisions for themselves if they had low implicit self-esteem but not if they had high implicit self-esteem; (3) There was no significant interaction between task framework and level of implicit self-esteem, and no significant interaction among task framework, level of implicit self-esteem, and decision maker's role. These results support the general findings from Hsee Weber (1997); Liu, Chen, Lu, and Wang (2010); and Xu and Xie (2011), but they are inconsistent with the findings from Wallach and Wing (1968); Stone, Yates, and Caruthers (2002); and Guo et al. (2010). The complicated interactions among task framework, level of implicit self-esteem, and decision maker's role are discussed based on the relevant findings.