The impact of self‐selected short sleep on monetary risk taking

Abstract

Summary Risky choice has been widely studied in experimental settings, but there is a paucity of research examining the effects of self‐selected sleep schedules on risky choices. The current study examined incentivised risky choices of 100 young, healthy adults whose self‐selected (at‐home) sleep schedules were tracked via actigraphy for 1 week prior to decision making. Average nightly sleep was 6.43 h/night. On each trial of the decision task, individuals chose between two monetary gambles, with separate blocks of trials presenting amounts to gain versus amounts to lose for each paired gamble choice. In general, participants were risk‐averse when trying to maximise gains (GAINS) and risk‐seeking when trying to minimise losses (LOSSES). These tendencies were amplified in trials where gambles differed more (vs less) in their riskiness. Response times were longer for real choices (vs. dummy trials of random choice), LOSS versus GAINS trials, and when gambles were more similar versus different in risk. Gamble choices were not impacted by actigraphy measured average sleep levels, which suggests self‐selected moderate sleep deprivation does not affect risky monetary choices, as has been found in studies of experimentally induced sleep deprivation. However, our data showed that sleep variability increased risk‐taking behaviour in the LOSS condition. Thus, risky decision‐making may relate more to variability in sleep efficiency than to overall sleep duration or quality in naturalistic settings. The current study gives insight into how decision making in experimental sleep settings may or may not translate to more ecologically valid settings of self‐directed sleep.

Sleep deprivation attenuates neural responses to outcomes from risky decision‐making

“…It also may suggest that less efficient compensatory strategies were used to perform the task. On the other hand, this result suggested that participants were less risky for both gains and losses after TSD, which is not entirely consistent with previous studies (Dickinson et al, 2022;McKenna et al, 2007). For example, there was a relative decrease in risk perception after TSD, which was manifested by increased sensitivity to reward and decreased sensitivity to risk (Banks et al, 2004;Harrison & Horne, 1998).…”

“…For example, there was a relative decrease in risk perception after TSD, which was manifested by increased sensitivity to reward and decreased sensitivity to risk (Banks et al., 2004; Harrison & Horne, 1998). Another study explored the impact of short sleep on monetary risk‐taking in more naturalistic settings and found that sleep variability increased risk‐taking behavior in the loss condition, which indicates that risk‐taking decisions may relate more to sleep efficiency variability than overall sleep duration or quality in naturalistic settings (Dickinson et al., 2022). The observed differences in task performance across studies could be due to the use of different paradigms, different risk settings, or different sleep parameters.…”

Sleep loss suicidal ideation: the role of trait extraversion

“…As negative emotions tend to increase during sleep deprivation (Killgore et al, 2008) or following poor quality sleep (Baglioni et al, 2010;Tkachenko et al, 2014), this lack of emotional regulatory capacity could exacerbate existing mental pain and thoughts of suicide for some individuals (Verrocchio et al, 2016). Second, consistent with the well-known role of the prefrontal cortex in higher order executive functioning and cognition, sleep deprivation has been shown to impair critical aspects of cognitive processing, including decisionmaking and risk propensity (Killgore et al, 2006;Dickinson et al, 2021), cognitive flexibility (Honn et al, 2019), as well as constructive thinking and emotional intelligence (Killgore et al, 2008). Deficits in many of these capacities have also been reported among individuals with chronic sleep disturbances (Cheng et al, 2017;Ballesio et al, 2019;Killgore et al, 2021).…”

“…Sleep loss has been shown to reduce positive mood state (Grezes et al, 2021 ; Stenson et al, 2021 ), degrade emotional intelligence (Killgore et al, 2008 , 2021 ), increase feelings of persecution (Kahn-Greene et al, 2007 ), and reduce frustration tolerance (Kahn-Greene et al, 2006 ), all of which can influence an individual’s outlook. Without sufficient restorative sleep, people make poorer decisions and take more risks under certain conditions (Killgore et al, 2006 ; Dickinson et al, 2021 ), particularly when relying on emotional valuation cues (Whitney et al, 2015 ). Mechanistically, many of these changes appear to be due to alterations in functional activity and neural communication throughout the brain produced by sleep deprivation (Venkatraman et al, 2007 ).…”

Sleep health

“…Dickinson et al (2022) looked at the question whether self‐selected short sleep has an impact on monetary risk taking. To operationalize monetary risk taking people could choose between two monetary gambles, either aiming to “maximize gains” or to “minimize losses”.…”