The Effect of Motivational and Personality Traits on Decision Behavior in the Sampling Paradigm

Previous research in regulatory focus theory and regulatory fit (Higgins, 1997, 2000) has identified two primary orientations and preferred means that people employ in-pursuit of a desired outcome. Promotion focus use eagerness means to approach gains, while prevention focus use vigilance means to avoid losses. These established theories have contributed to our understanding of individual-level differences in various description-based decision tasks, where people learn about choice outcomes through explicit descriptions (Hertwig, Barron, Weber, & Erev, 2004). The primary purpose of this dissertation was to examine the effect of ‘trait-level’ regulatory focus and regulatory fit on decision behavior in a decisions-from-experience task, where choice outcomes are unknown and can only be learned through experience. Specifically, the present studies examine decision behavior in the sampling paradigm (Hertwig et al., 2004; Weber, Shafir, & Blais, 2004), where participants may sample outcomes from the presented decision options before making a consequential decision. In the reported studies, individual differences in regulatory focus orientation were predicted to influence decision behavior (i.e., sampled outcomes and risky choices) above and beyond other relevant dispositional variables, specifically, financial risk tolerance and broad (Big-5) personality traits. Decision behavior was expected to vary by motivational orientation and by its interaction with choice domain (i.e., gain vs. loss problems). A secondary purpose was to examine the effect of financial risk tolerance on risky choices, as well as to explore the relationships between broad personality traits and decision behavior. Three studies (pilot and two main) were conducted. In each study, participants were given a set of four questionnaires and participated in an interactive computer-based (sampling paradigm) game. Because of data quality concerns with the pilot study and Study 1, the interpretations rely on the results from Study 2. Study 2 found trait-level regulatory fit to significantly predict participants’ exploratory (i.e., sampling) behavior. Moreover, Study 2 provided evidence that the frequency of risky choices varied by risk tolerance level. The theoretical implications for regulatory focus orientation and experience-based decision behavior are discussed, and potential avenues for future research are proposed

The Effect of Chronic Regulatory Focus on Sampling Behavior and RiskyDecisions

Prior research on a possible role of regulatory focus orientation (Higgins, 1998) in financial decision-making has focusedon description-based tasks in which people receive explicit information about the characteristics of a decision problem apriori. However, relatively few real-world decisions resemble this type of laboratory task. Here, we examine how regu-latory focus orientation influences peoples decision behavior in an experience-based sampling paradigm (Hertwig et al.,2004), where people learn about the characteristics of a decision problem only through experience. We investigated ifindividuals chronic regulatory focus orientation (promotion-focus or prevention-focus) predicts process (sampling) andoutcomes (risky versus sure-thing choices) in a sampling paradigm task. Regulatory focus did not predict sampling behav-ior, nor the number of risky choices in the gain domain, but promotion focus orientation was correlated with the prevalenceof risky choices in the loss domain. Also, the big-5 personality trait of Openness was found to be related to number ofsampled outcomes for losses and to risky choices for gains