Gambling on Others’ Health: Risky Pro-social Decision-Making in the Era of Covid19

Loued-Khenissi, Leyla; Corradi‐Dell’Acqua, Corrado

doi:10.31234/osf.io/qrbza

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Decisions in our study were risk-seeking, an effect which is in line with studies on different kinds of negative rewards, ranging from monetary loss ( [30]) to disease prevention ( [3]; [34]). In all these cases, participants became more riskaverse as the expected value of the negative event increased, an effect also confirmed in our study (Figure 3).…”

Section: Decisions For Others' Pain Are Less Riskysupporting

confidence: 80%

The effect of uncertainty on pain decisions for self and others

Loued-Khenissi

Martin‐Brevet

Schumacher

et al. 2022

European Journal of Pain

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Estimating others' pain is a challenging inferential process, associated with a high degree of uncertainty. The present study exploited models of probabilistic decision-making to investigate how uncertainty influences the assessment of another's pain. We engaged sixty-three dyads (43 strangers and 20 romantic couples) in a task where individual choices affected the pain delivered to either oneself (the agent) or the other member of the dyad. At each trial, agents were presented with cues predicting a given pain intensity with an associated probability of occurrences. Agents chose either a sure (mild decrease of pain) or risky (50% chance of avoiding pain altogether) management option, following which they were asked to bid on their choice. A heat stimulation was then issued to the target (self or other), whose intensity was rated. We found that, the higher the expected pain, the more risk-averse agents became, in line with findings in value-based decision-making. Furthermore, agents gambled less on another individual's pain (especially strangers) and placed higher bids on pain relief than they did for themselves. Most critically, the uncertainty associated with expected pain dampened ratings made for strangers' pain. This contrasted with the effect on an agent's own pain, for which risk had a marginal hyperalgesic effect.Overall, our results suggested that risk selectively affects decision-making on a stranger's suffering, both at the level of assessment and treatment selection, by 1) leading to underestimation, 2) privileging sure options, and 3) altruistically allocating more money to insure the treatment's success.Perspective: How does uncertainty affect other-regarding decision-making on pain? Using a formal account of uncertainty in a probabilistic pain task, we find individuals globally show prosocial tendencies when deciding on others' pain, yet downgrade ratings on strangers' pain when the latter is endowed with higher predicted uncertainty.

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Section: Decisions For Others' Pain Are Less Riskysupporting

confidence: 80%

The effect of uncertainty on pain decisions for self and others

Loued-Khenissi

Martin‐Brevet

Schumacher

et al. 2022

European Journal of Pain

Self Cite

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“…Uncertainty has been extensively studied in economic decision-making ( [33]; [44]; [27];) particularly in the form of "risk", the uncertainty expected from available information. Previous studies have found that people avoid risk when facing gains, whereas they seek it when facing monetary loss ( [28]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Uncertainty on Pain Decisions for Self and Others

Loued-Khenissi¹,

Martin²,

Schumacher³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Estimating others’ pain is a challenging inferential process, associated with a high degree of uncertainty. The present study exploited models of probabilistic decision-making to investigate how uncertainty influences the assessment of another’s pain. We engaged sixty-three dyads (43 strangers and 20 romantic couples) in a task where individual choices affected the pain delivered to either oneself (the agent) or the other member of the dyad. At each trial, agents were presented with cues predicting a given pain intensity with an associated probability of occurrences. Agents chose either a sure (mild decrease of pain) or risky (50% chance of avoiding pain altogether) management option, following which they were asked to bid on their choice. A heat stimulation was then issued to the target (self or other), whose intensity was rated. We found that, the higher the expected pain, the more risk-averse agents became, in line with findings in value-based decision-making. Furthermore, agents gambled less on another individual’s pain (especially strangers) and placed higher bids on pain relief than they did for themselves. Most critically, the uncertainty associated with expected pain dampened ratings made for strangers’ pain. This contrasted with the effect on an agent’s own pain, for which risk had a marginal hyperalgesic effect. Overall, our results suggested that risk selectively affects decision-making on a stranger’s suffering, both at the level of assessment and treatment selection, by 1) leading to underestimation, 2) privileging sure options, and 3) altruistically allocating more money to insure the treatment’s success.

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Gambling on Others’ Health: Risky Pro-social Decision-Making in the Era of Covid19

Cited by 2 publications

References 77 publications

The effect of uncertainty on pain decisions for self and others

The effect of uncertainty on pain decisions for self and others

The Effect of Uncertainty on Pain Decisions for Self and Others

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