IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcdx/2010-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are smarter people really less risk averse?

Author

Listed:
  • Sergio Sousa

    (University of Nottingham)

Abstract

Using hypothetical lottery choices to measure risk preferences, Frederick (2005) finds that higher cognitive ability is associated with less risk aversion. This paper documents, however, that when using an incentive compatible measure of risk preference, attitudes towards risk are not associated to cognitive ability as measured by Frederick’s (2005) three-item cognitive reflection test. This is a new finding that adds weight to the claim that lack of proper financial incentives can sometimes be a source of bias. In addition, we show that this lack of association between risk preferences and cognitive ability is robust to using a broader measure of cognitive ability that takes into account both verbal and non-verbal reasoning skills. Our results suggest the possibility that whether cognitive ability relates to attitudes towards risk is sensitive to instruments used to measure both of them.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergio Sousa, 2010. "Are smarter people really less risk averse?," Discussion Papers 2010-17, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
  • Handle: RePEc:not:notcdx:2010-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cedex/documents/papers/2010-17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:feb:framed:0074 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Guillen, Pablo & del Paso, Rafael López, 2008. "Math skills and risk attitudes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 332-336, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andersson, Ola & Tyran, Jean-Robert & Wengström, Erik & Holm, Håkan J., 2013. "Risk Aversion Relates to Cognitive Ability: Fact or Fiction?," Working Paper Series 964, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Nicolas Eber & Patrick Roger & Tristan Roger, 2024. "Finance and intelligence: An overview of the literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 503-554, April.
    3. Amador, Luis & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Espín, Antonio M. & Garcia, Teresa & Hernández, Ana, 2019. "Consistent and inconsistent choices under uncertainty: The role of cognitive abilities," MPRA Paper 95178, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Amador-Hidalgo, Luis & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Espín, Antonio M. & García-Muñoz, Teresa & Hernández-Román, Ana, 2021. "Cognitive abilities and risk-taking: Errors, not preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    5. Hernán Bejarano & Francisco Galarza, 2016. "Can cognitive skills and risk aversion explain inconsistent choices? An experiment," Working Papers 16-03, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico.
    6. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "On the Relationship between Cognitive Ability and Risk Preference," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 115-134, Spring.
    7. Ola Andersson & Håkan J. Holm & Jean-Robert Tyran & Erik Wengström, 2016. "Risk Aversion Relates To Cognitive Ability: Preferences Or Noise?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(5), pages 1129-1154, October.

    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. Bruns, Selina & Hermann, Daniel & Mußhoff, Oliver, 2022. "Investigating inconsistencies in complex lotteries: The role of cognitive skills of low-numeracy subjects," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    2. Aurora García-Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Daniel Navarro-Martínez & Gerardo Sabater-Grande, 2011. "The stochastic component in choice and regression to the mean," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(2), pages 251-267, August.
    3. Luis Aranda & Martin Siyaranamual, 2014. "Are Smarter People Better Samaritans? Effect of Cognitive Abilities on Pro-Social Behaviors," Working Papers 2014:06, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    4. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Espinosa, María Paz & Rey-Biel, Pedro, 2011. "Travelers' types," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 25-36, April.
    5. Giuseppe Attanasi & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Valentina Rotondi & Daria Vigani, 2018. "Lottery- and survey-based risk attitudes linked through a multichoice elicitation task," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(3), pages 341-372, May.
    6. Oechssler, Jörg & Roider, Andreas & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2009. "Cognitive abilities and behavioral biases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 147-152, October.
    7. Kiss, H.J. & Rodriguez-Lara, I. & Rosa-García, A., 2016. "Think twice before running! Bank runs and cognitive abilities," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 12-19.
    8. Hoppe, Eva I. & Kusterer, David J., 2011. "Behavioral biases and cognitive reflection," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 97-100, February.
    9. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2014. "Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game: Are there brains in games?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-56.
    10. Nicolas Eber & Patrick Roger & Tristan Roger, 2024. "Finance and intelligence: An overview of the literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 503-554, April.
    11. Chen, Chia-Ching & Chiu, I-Ming & Smith, John & Yamada, Tetsuji, 2013. "Too smart to be selfish? Measures of cognitive ability, social preferences, and consistency," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 112-122.
    12. Amador-Hidalgo, Luis & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Espín, Antonio M. & García-Muñoz, Teresa & Hernández-Román, Ana, 2021. "Cognitive abilities and risk-taking: Errors, not preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    13. Park, Na Young, 2016. "Domain-specific risk preference and cognitive ability," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1-4.
    14. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & García-Muñoz, Teresa & González, Roberto Hernán, 2012. "Cognitive effort in the Beauty Contest Game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 254-260.
    15. Andersson, Ola & Tyran, Jean-Robert & Wengström, Erik & Holm, Håkan J., 2013. "Risk Aversion Relates to Cognitive Ability: Fact or Fiction?," Working Paper Series 964, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    16. Georgantzís, Nikolaos & Navarro-Martínez, Daniel, 2010. "Understanding the WTA-WTP gap: Attitudes, feelings, uncertainty and personality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 895-907, December.
    17. Allred, Sarah & Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 162-178.
    18. Sérgio Almeida De Sousa & Marcos De Almeida Rangel, 2014. "Do As I Do, Not As I Say: Incentivization And The Relationship Between Cognitive Ability And Riskaversion," Anais do XL Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 40th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 126, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    19. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:5:p:591-604 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Daniel Horn & Hubert Janos Kiss, 2018. "Which preferences associate with school performance?—Lessons from an exploratory study with university students," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-32, February.
    21. Aurora García-Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Ainhoa Jaramillo-Gutiérrez & Melanie Parravano, 2010. "The SGG risk elicitation task:Implementation and results," ThE Papers 10/07, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cognitive ability; risk preferences; financial incentives; cognitive reflection test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D00 - Microeconomics - - General - - - General

    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:not:notcdx:2010-17. 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: Jose V Guinot Saporta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdnotuk.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.