Abstract
The present research examined the influence of perceived ownership (self/other) and perceived chooser (self/other) of stocks on brain activity, and investigated whether differential brain responses to stock outcomes as a result of perceived differences in ownership of stock would be modulated by perceived chooser of stock. We used a 2 (stock chooser: self, other) × 2 (stock owner: self, other) within-subject design to represent four types of chooser-owner relationships. Brain potentials were recorded while participants observed increasing and decreasing stock prices. Results showed that observations of stock outcomes among four types of chooser-owner relationships elicited differentiated feedback-related negativity (d-FRN: differences in FRN waves between losses and gains, reflecting violations of expectancy to stock outcomes): (1) Self-chosen-other-owned stocks evoked significantly larger d-FRN discrepancies than self-chosen-self-owned stocks, indicating a greater expectancy violation to others' losses than to one's own, demonstrating a reversed ownership effect. Moreover, people high in conscientiousness showed an increase in this trend, suggesting a stronger other-consideration; (2) Self-chosen-self-owned stocks and other-chosen-self-owned stocks revealed no significant d-FRN discrepancy, showing no choosership effect beyond the ownership effect; (3) Other-chosen-self-owned stocks evoked a significantly stronger d-FRN discrepancy than other-chosen-other-owned stocks, demonstrating an ownership effect; (4) Self-chosen-other-owned stocks evoked a significantly stronger d-FRN discrepancy than other-chosen-other-owned stocks, revealing a choosership effect. These findings suggest that the ownership effect could be reversed by conscientiousness induced by perceived choosership in the agency relationship, while the choosership effect is attenuated and even disappears under the influence of perceived ownership.
Highlights
People may take on diverse financial roles in the stock market: observers, buyers, fund managers, or clients
We proposed a new scenario-simulation paradigm to assign four financial roles by priming both ownership and choosership, which can compare the processing of outcome evaluation reflected by feedback related negativity responses (FRNs) when assigned to each of the four different roles
Trials in which the participants did not respond within 2 s or responded incorrectly and trials in which the reaction times (RTs) exceeded three standard deviations from the mean in each experimental condition were excluded from data analysis
Summary
People may take on diverse financial roles in the stock market: observers, buyers, fund managers, or clients. These four roles can be classified according to two categories: ownership (the individual who owns the stock) and choosership (the individual who selected the stock). The roles concerning ownership (self-owned stocks vs other-owned stocks) and the roles concerning choosership. Choice, and FRN to Stock Outcomes (self-chosen stocks vs other-chosen stocks) are combined to create four chooser-owner relationships. How ownership and choosership of stocks individually and interactively influence brain activities while observing stock outcomes (gains or losses) across the four roles remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the individual and interactive influence of perceived ownership and perceived choosership of stocks on stock outcome evaluations
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