Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making

This paper presents evidence on the effect of effort provision on the risk attitude of individuals through the mechanism of reference point. Effort is found to be perceived as part of people’s decision costs and is also capable of shaping their expectations, which are fundamental in the formation of...

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Main Authors: Leong, Carissa Jun Wei, Pang, Hui Xia, Tok, Wan Ling
Other Authors: He Tai-Sen
Format: Final Year Project (FYP)
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76641
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author Leong, Carissa Jun Wei
Pang, Hui Xia
Tok, Wan Ling
author2 He Tai-Sen
author_facet He Tai-Sen
Leong, Carissa Jun Wei
Pang, Hui Xia
Tok, Wan Ling
author_sort Leong, Carissa Jun Wei
collection NTU
description This paper presents evidence on the effect of effort provision on the risk attitude of individuals through the mechanism of reference point. Effort is found to be perceived as part of people’s decision costs and is also capable of shaping their expectations, which are fundamental in the formation of reference points. We hypothesize that greater effort involved would lead to more risk-loving behaviors by raising subjects’ expectations and reference points, thus propelling them to take on more risk to gain a higher reward. In this study, we manipulate the effort level and elicit the effect on individuals’ risk preferences through investment decision-making. The experiment is programmed with the z-Tree software and 186 undergraduates were randomly allocated to four treatment groups which required different effort levels to obtain the same investment amount for the investment decision task. We observe that subjects who have exerted greater effort indeed exhibited a higher risk-taking attitude, which is consistent with our hypothesis. This result illustrates that these decision costs appear to have a significant effect on the behaviors of subjects in monetary investment decision task.
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spelling ntu-10356/766412019-12-10T10:58:48Z Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making Leong, Carissa Jun Wei Pang, Hui Xia Tok, Wan Ling He Tai-Sen School of Social Sciences DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology This paper presents evidence on the effect of effort provision on the risk attitude of individuals through the mechanism of reference point. Effort is found to be perceived as part of people’s decision costs and is also capable of shaping their expectations, which are fundamental in the formation of reference points. We hypothesize that greater effort involved would lead to more risk-loving behaviors by raising subjects’ expectations and reference points, thus propelling them to take on more risk to gain a higher reward. In this study, we manipulate the effort level and elicit the effect on individuals’ risk preferences through investment decision-making. The experiment is programmed with the z-Tree software and 186 undergraduates were randomly allocated to four treatment groups which required different effort levels to obtain the same investment amount for the investment decision task. We observe that subjects who have exerted greater effort indeed exhibited a higher risk-taking attitude, which is consistent with our hypothesis. This result illustrates that these decision costs appear to have a significant effect on the behaviors of subjects in monetary investment decision task. Bachelor of Arts in Economics 2019-04-01T07:02:08Z 2019-04-01T07:02:08Z 2019 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76641 en 18 p. application/pdf
spellingShingle DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
Leong, Carissa Jun Wei
Pang, Hui Xia
Tok, Wan Ling
Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making
title Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making
title_full Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making
title_fullStr Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making
title_full_unstemmed Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making
title_short Effort provision as a reference point in risk decision-making
title_sort effort provision as a reference point in risk decision making
topic DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76641
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AT panghuixia effortprovisionasareferencepointinriskdecisionmaking
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