An influential program of psychological research suggests that people's judgements and decisions depend on the way in which information is presented, or ‘framed’. In a central choice paradigm, decision-makers seem to adopt different preferences, attitudes risk, depending whether options specify number people who will be saved corresponding die. It standardly assumed such responses violate found...

This study explores the influence of different social reference points and different comparison group sizes on risky decision-making. Participants were presented with a scenario describing an exam, and presented with the opportunity of making a risky decision in the context of different information provided about the performance of their peers. We found that behavior was influenced, not only by...

The phenomenon of loss aversion (the tendency for losses to have a greater impact than comparable gains) has long been observed in daily life. Neurocognitive studies and brain imaging studies have shed light on the correlation between the phenomenon of loss aversion and the brain region of the prefrontal cortex. Recent brain stimulation studies using bilateral transcranial magnetic stimulation ...

Recent research in decision making reported a description-experience (DE) gap: opposite risky choices when decisions are made from descriptions (gambles in which probability distributions and outcomes are explicitly stated) and when decisions are made from experience (the knowledge of the gambles is obtained by sampling outcomes from unknown probability distributions before making a choice). Th...

BACKGROUND It is well known that brain dopamine (DA) signals support risk-based decision making; however, the specific terminal regions of midbrain DA neurons through which DA signals mediate risk-based decision making are unknown. METHODS Using microinfusions of the D1/D2 receptor antagonist flupenthixol, we sought to explore the role of D1/D2 receptor activity in the rat orbitofrontal corte...

In everyday life, decisions are often made under stress and while being occupied with multiple tasks. It has recently been shown that acute stress impairs decision making under risk. Performing a parallel executive task also caused riskier decision making. To investigate the effects of a combination of these two factors on decision making, we conducted a large (N = 126) experimental study with ...