Across 8 experiments, the influence of anxiety on advice seeking and advice taking is described. Anxious individuals are found to be more likely to seek and rely on advice than are those in a neutral emotional state (Experiment 1), but this pattern of results does not generalize to other negatively valenced emotions (Experiment 2). The relationships between anxiety and advice seeking and anxiety and advice taking are mediated by self-confidence; anxiety lowers self-confidence, which increases advice seeking and reliance upon advice (Experiment 3). Although anxiety also impairs information processing, impaired information processing does not mediate the relationship between anxiety and advice taking (Experiment 4). Finally, anxious individuals are found to fail to discriminate between good and bad advice (Experiments 5a-5c), and between advice from advisors with and without a conflict of interest (Experiment 6).

Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and previous experience are regarded as the main criteria for investment decisions. Our research, however, documents other critical criteria that investors use to make these decisions: the gender and physical attractiveness of the entrepreneurs themselves. Across a field setting (three entrepreneurial pitch competitions in the United States) and two experiments, we identify a profound and consistent gender gap in entrepreneur persuasiveness. Investors prefer pitches presented by male entrepreneurs compared with pitches made by female entrepreneurs, even when the content of the pitch is the same. This effect is moderated by male physical attractiveness: attractive males were particularly persuasive, whereas physical attractiveness did not matter among female entrepreneurs.physical appearance | persuasion

Individuals often feel anxious in anticipation of tasks such as speaking in public or meeting with a boss. I find that an overwhelming majority of people believe trying to calm down is the best way to cope with pre-performance anxiety. However, across several studies involving karaoke singing, public speaking, and math performance, I investigate an alternative strategy: reappraising anxiety as excitement. Compared with those who attempt to calm down, individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement feel more excited and perform better. Individuals can reappraise anxiety as excitement using minimal strategies such as self-talk (e.g., saying "I am excited" out loud) or simple messages (e.g., "get excited"), which lead them to feel more excited, adopt an opportunity mind-set (as opposed to a threat mind-set), and improve their subsequent performance. These findings suggest the importance of arousal congruency during the emotional reappraisal process.

Negotiations trigger anxiety. Across four studies, we demonstrate that anxiety is harmful to negotiator performance. In our experiments, we induced either anxiety or neutral feelings and studied behavior in negotiation and continuous shrinking-pie tasks. Compared to negotiators experiencing neutral feelings, negotiators who feel anxious expect lower outcomes, make lower first offers, respond more quickly to offers, exit bargaining situations earlier, and ultimately obtain worse outcomes. The relationship between anxiety and negotiator behavior is moderated by negotiator self-efficacy; high self-efficacy mitigates the harmful effects of anxiety. Keywords Anxiety THE WHARTON RISK MANAGEMENT AND DECISION PROCESSES CENTER Established in 1984, the Wharton Risk Management and Decision ProcessesCenter develops and promotes effective corporate and public policies for low-probability events with potentially catastrophic consequences through the integration of risk assessment, and risk perception with risk management strategies. Natural disasters, technological hazards, and national and international security issues (e.g., terrorism risk insurance markets, protection of critical infrastructure, global security) are among the extreme events that are the focus of the Center's research.The Risk Center's neutrality allows it to undertake large-scale projects in conjunction with other researchers and organizations in the public and private sectors. Building on the disciplines of economics, decision sciences, finance, insurance, marketing and psychology, the Center supports and undertakes field and experimental studies of risk and uncertainty to better understand how individuals and organizations make choices under conditions of risk and uncertainty. Risk Center research also investigates the effectiveness of strategies such as risk communication, information sharing, incentive systems, insurance, regulation and public-private collaborations at a national and international scale. From these findings, the Wharton Risk Center's research team -over 50 faculty, fellows and doctoral students -is able to design new approaches to enable individuals and organizations to make better decisions regarding risk under various regulatory and market conditions. The Center is also concerned with training leading decision makers. It actively engages multiple viewpoints, including top-level representatives from industry, government, international organizations, interest groups and academics through its research and policy publications, and through sponsored seminars, roundtables and forums.More information is available at

Although individuals can derive substantial benefits from exchanging information and ideas, many individuals are reluctant to seek advice from others. We find that people are reticent to seek advice for fear of appearing incompetent. This fear, however, is misplaced. We demonstrate that individuals perceive those who seek advice as more competent than those who do not. This effect is moderated by task difficulty, advisor egocentrism, and advisor expertise. Individuals perceive those who seek advice as more competent when the task is difficult rather than when it is easy, when people seek advice from them personally rather than when they seek advice from others and when people seek advice from experts rather than from nonexperts or not at all. This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, judgment and decision making.