IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v48y2002i6p711-718.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Neuronal Substrates for Choice Under Ambiguity, Risk, Gains, and Losses

Author

Listed:
  • Kip Smith

    (Kansas State University, Department of Psychology, Manhattan, Kansas 66506)

  • John Dickhaut

    (University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management, Department of Accounting, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455)

  • Kevin McCabe

    (George Mason University, Economics and Law, Krasnow Center, 4400 University Drive, MSN 5C7, Fairfax, Virginia 22030)

  • José V. Pardo

    (Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55417, and University of Minnesota, Department of Psychiatry, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455)

Abstract

Economic forces shape the behavior of individuals and institutions. Forces affecting individual behavior are attitudes about payoffs (gains and losses) and beliefs about outcomes (risk and ambiguity). Under risk, the likelihoods of alternative outcomes are fully known. Under ambiguity, these likelihoods are unknown. In our experiment, payoffs and outcomes were manipulated independently during a classical choice task as brain activity was measured with positron emission tomography (PET). Here, we show that attitudes about payoffs and beliefs about the likelihood of outcomes exhibit interaction effects both behaviorally and neurally. Participants are risk averse in gains and risk-seeking in losses; they are ambiguity-seeking in neither gains nor losses. Two neural substrates for choice surfaced in the interaction between attitudes and beliefs: a dorsomedial neocortical system and a ventromedial system. This finding reveals that the brain does not honor a prevalent assumption of economics---the independence of the evaluations of payoffs and outcomes. The demonstration of a relationship between brain activity and observed economic choice attests to the feasibility of a neuroeconomic decision science.

Suggested Citation

  • Kip Smith & John Dickhaut & Kevin McCabe & José V. Pardo, 2002. "Neuronal Substrates for Choice Under Ambiguity, Risk, Gains, and Losses," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(6), pages 711-718, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:48:y:2002:i:6:p:711-718
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.48.6.711.194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.48.6.711.194
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.48.6.711.194?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    2. Camerer, Colin & Weber, Martin, 1992. "Recent Developments in Modeling Preferences: Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 325-370, October.
    3. Curley, Shawn P. & Yates, J. Frank & Abrams, Richard A., 1986. "Psychological sources of ambiguity avoidance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 230-256, October.
    4. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Cohen, Michele & Jaffray, Jean-Yves & Said, Tanios, 1987. "Experimental comparison of individual behavior under risk and under uncertainty for gains and for losses," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-22, February.
    6. Curley, Shawn P. & Yates, J. Frank, 1985. "The center and range of the probability interval as factors affecting ambiguity preferences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 273-287, October.
    7. Heath, Chip & Tversky, Amos, 1991. "Preference and Belief: Ambiguity and Competence in Choice under Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 5-28, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mercè Roca & Robin Hogarth & A. Maule, 2006. "Ambiguity seeking as a result of the status quo bias," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 175-194, May.
    2. Ning Du & David V. Budescu, 2005. "The Effects of Imprecise Probabilities and Outcomes in Evaluating Investment Options," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(12), pages 1791-1803, December.
    3. Jean Desrochers & J. Francois Outreville, 2013. "Uncertainty, Ambiguity and Risk Taking: an experimental investigation of consumer behavior and demand for insurance," ICER Working Papers 10-2013, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    4. Carmela Di Mauro & Anna Maffioletti, 2004. "Attitudes to risk and attitudes to uncertainty: experimental evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 357-372.
    5. Lahno, Amrei M., 2014. "Social anchor effects in decision-making under ambiguity," Discussion Papers in Economics 20960, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    6. Richard J. Arend, 2020. "Strategic decision-making under ambiguity: a new problem space and a proposed optimization approach," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(3), pages 1231-1251, November.
    7. Divya Aggarwal & Pitabas Mohanty, 2022. "Influence of imprecise information on risk and ambiguity preferences: Experimental evidence," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 1025-1038, June.
    8. Laure Cabantous & Denis Hilton, 2006. "De l'aversion à l'ambiguïté aux attitudes face à l'ambiguïté. Les apports d'une perspective psychologique en économie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(2), pages 259-280.
    9. Paul Dolan & Martin Jones, 2004. "Explaining Attitudes Towards Ambiguity: An Experimental Test Of The Comparative Ignorance Hypothesis," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(3), pages 281-301, August.
    10. Budescu, David V. & Kuhn, Kristine M. & Kramer, Karen M. & Johnson, Timothy R., 2002. "Modeling certainty equivalents for imprecise gambles," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 748-768, July.
    11. Shawn P. Curley, 2007. "The application of Dempster-Shafer theory demonstrated with justification provided by legal evidence," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 2, pages 257-276, October.
    12. Anna Maffioletti & Michele Santoni, 2005. "Do Trade Union Leaders Violate Subjective Expected Utility? Some Insights From Experimental Data," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 207-253, November.
    13. Yan Li & David Ahlstrom, 2020. "Risk-taking in entrepreneurial decision-making: A dynamic model of venture decision," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 899-933, September.
    14. André Palma & Mohammed Abdellaoui & Giuseppe Attanasi & Moshe Ben-Akiva & Ido Erev & Helga Fehr-Duda & Dennis Fok & Craig Fox & Ralph Hertwig & Nathalie Picard & Peter Wakker & Joan Walker & Martin We, 2014. "Beware of black swans: Taking stock of the description–experience gap in decision under uncertainty," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 269-280, September.
    15. Cettolin, E. & Riedl, A.M., 2015. "Revealed incomplete preferences under uncertainty," Research Memorandum 016, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    16. Paul Dolan & Martin Jones, 2002. "Explaining Attitudes towards Ambiguity: An Experimental Test of the Comparative Ignorance Hypothesis," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 131, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    17. Shaw, W. Douglass & Woodward, Richard T., 2008. "Why environmental and resource economists should care about non-expected utility models," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 66-89, January.
    18. George Wu & Richard Gonzalez, 1999. "Nonlinear Decision Weights in Choice Under Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(1), pages 74-85, January.
    19. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Olivier L’Haridon, 2013. "La rationalité à l'épreuve de l'économie comportementale," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 35-89.
    20. Aggarwal, Divya & Damodaran, Uday, 2020. "Ambiguity attitudes and myopic loss aversion: Experimental evidence using carnival games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:48:y:2002:i:6:p:711-718. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.