The Experimental Research On The Impact Of Emotions On Risk Taking And Judgment

This research first differentiated researches on relations between decision making and emotion, then expounded three kinds of emotions: anticipated emotion, post-decision emotion and emotion experienced at the time of decision making (process emotion), which may influence decision making. This research focused mainly on process emotion, which have been received much attention in fields of decision making.This research consisted of three experiments and separately selected two kinds of decision tasks : risk taking and evaluative judgment. Before subjects made decisions and judgments, they would be induced relevant emotions by some techniques (circumstance-induced and semantic-induced), then would be asked to finish specific tasks.Experiment 1 studied the impact of process emotions on risk taking, the results showed that : (1) the emotions experienced at the time of decision making make subjects' risky decisions occur mood-congruent effects. The subjects in positive emotions are likely to select risky options and tend to underestimate perceived risk, while the subjects in negative emotions are likely to shy away risky options and tend to overestimate perceived risk. (2) Trait social boldness (H), tested by 16PF , has no remarkable effects on risk taking. (3) Under certain emotions, there's no gender difference on risk taking , while there's gender difference on emotional intensity. Female subjects reported being just as happy as male subjects , but experienced more negative emotions (fear).Experiment 2 modified Welch's experiment 1999), which studied the impact of process emotions on task-induced affect. Subjects in this experiment were asked to decide whether to make a speech or not .The results showed that : (1) The positive or negative emotions experienced at the time of decision making reduce or increase subjects' task-induced affect separately, and influence cognitive process of risk taking. (2) Familiarity with decision scenarios has no remarkable effect on-risk taking.Experiment 3 studied the impact of process emotions on evaluative judgment , the results showed that: (1) Subjects' judgments exist mood-congruent effects. (2) As emotion-induced materials, there's no remarkable effect difference between Chinese and English. (3) Emotion-congruent judgment is a general effect, generalizing to different task materials.