Toward a model of risky decisions: Synergistic effect of affect intensity and affective processing on risk-seeking as a function of decision domain

Abstract

Four studies investigated the causal link of affect intensity with risky decisions, and showed a striking contrast of life-saving and valuables-saving domains. When social distance is small people are more risk-seeking in the life-saving domain but less risk-seeking in the valuables-saving domain (Study 1), and the results remain robust under different framings (Study 2). Relatedly, people rely more on affective processing when social distance is small in the life-saving domain, but not in the valuables-saving domain (Study 3). Furthermore, in the life-saving domain social distance exerts an effect on risk preference under affective processing but not under deliberate processing, whereas, in the valuables-saving domain, social distance influences risk preference under deliberate processing but not under affective processing (Study 4). A unified, causal model of risky decisions is proposed to account for these findings and the fundamental differences among decision domains in light of their relationships with the affective processing. The model has a potential to generalize into other decision domains.