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Priming Risky Choice: Do Risk Preferences Need Inferences?
Author(s) -
Newell Ben R.,
Shaw Brad
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of behavioral decision making
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1099-0771
pISSN - 0894-3257
DOI - 10.1002/bdm.1945
Subject(s) - psychology , priming (agriculture) , contrast (vision) , unconscious mind , social psychology , context (archaeology) , inference , risk seeking , cognitive psychology , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , botany , germination , artificial intelligence , computer science , psychoanalysis , biology
The notion that subtle influences, often falling outside awareness, can bias behaviour has a strong grip on both theoretical perspectives and the public imagination. We report three experiments that examined this idea in the context of risky choice. Experiment 1 ( N = 100) appeared to find evidence for an interaction whereby participants primed but not reminded of the prime showed an assimilation effect (e.g. participants primed to be risk seeking became more risk seeking) whereas those who were primed and reminded showed a contrast effect (e.g. became less risk seeking). However, two further experiments ( N = 180, N = 128) failed to find any evidence for this interaction, and none of the experiments found evidence for the asymmetry in awareness predicted by an ‘unconscious’ assimilation but ‘conscious’ contrast account. The data were analysed using both Null Hypothesis Significance Testing and Bayesian methods, and the implications of the conclusions arising from each are discussed. Whatever one's statistical predilection, the results imply a reduction of confidence in the belief that risk preferences need no inferences. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.