TY - JOUR
T1 - Trait anxiety and economic risk avoidance are not necessarily associated
T2 - Evidence from the framing effect
AU - Gu, Ruolei
AU - Wu, Runguo
AU - Broster, Lucas S.
AU - Jiang, Yang
AU - Xu, Rui
AU - Yang, Qiwei
AU - Xu, Pengfei
AU - Luo, Yue Jia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Gu, Wu, Broster, Jiang, Xu, Yang, Xu and Luo.
PY - 2017/1/31
Y1 - 2017/1/31
N2 - According to previous literature, trait anxiety is related to the tendency to choose safety options during risk decision-making, that is, risk avoidance. In our opinion, anxious people's risk preference might actually reflect their hypersensitivity to emotional information. To examine this hypothesis, a decision-making task that could elicit the framing effect was employed. The framing effect indicates that risk preference could be modulated by emotional messages contained in the description (i.e., frame) of options. The behavioral results have showed the classic framing effect. In addition, individual level of trait anxiety was positively correlated with the framing effect size. However, trait anxiety was not correlated with risk-avoidance ratio in any condition. Finally, the relationship between anxiety and the framing effect remained significant after the level of depression was also taken into account. The theoretical significance and the major limitations of this study are discussed.
AB - According to previous literature, trait anxiety is related to the tendency to choose safety options during risk decision-making, that is, risk avoidance. In our opinion, anxious people's risk preference might actually reflect their hypersensitivity to emotional information. To examine this hypothesis, a decision-making task that could elicit the framing effect was employed. The framing effect indicates that risk preference could be modulated by emotional messages contained in the description (i.e., frame) of options. The behavioral results have showed the classic framing effect. In addition, individual level of trait anxiety was positively correlated with the framing effect size. However, trait anxiety was not correlated with risk-avoidance ratio in any condition. Finally, the relationship between anxiety and the framing effect remained significant after the level of depression was also taken into account. The theoretical significance and the major limitations of this study are discussed.
KW - Decision-making
KW - Depression
KW - Framing effect
KW - Risk avoidance
KW - Trait anxiety
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85012079667&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85012079667&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00092
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00092
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85012079667
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 8
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
IS - JAN
M1 - 92
ER -