| Summary: | When deciding for
others based on explicitly described odds and outcomes, people often have
different risk preferences for others than for themselves. In two
pre-registered experiments, we examine risk preference for others where people
learn about the odds and outcomes by experiencing them through sampling. In
both experiments, on average, people were more risk averse for others than for
themselves, but only when the risky option had a higher expected value.
Furthermore, based on a separate set of choices, we classified people as pro-
or anti-social. Only those people classified as anti-social were more risk
averse for others, whereas those classified as prosocial chose similarly for
themselves and others. When the uncertainty was removed, however, all
participants exhibited less anti-social behavior. Together, these results
suggest that anti-social motives contribute to the observed limited risk taking
for others and that outcome uncertainty facilitates the expression of these
motives.
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