Work

Interoceptive ability predicts aversion to losses

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: Emotions have been proposed to inform risky decision-making through the influence of affective physiological responses on subjective value. The ability to perceive internal body states, or "interoception" may influence this relationship. Here, we examined whether interoception predicts participants' degree of loss aversion, which has been previously linked to choice-related arousal responses. Participants performed both a heartbeat-detection task indexing interoception and a risky monetary decision-making task, from which loss aversion, risk attitudes and choice consistency were parametrically measured. Interoceptive ability correlated selectively with loss aversion and was unrelated to the other value parameters. This finding suggests that specific and separable component processes underlying valuation are shaped not only by our physiological responses, as shown in previous findings, but also by our interoceptive access to such signals.

Source: Cognition & Emotion

DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2014.925426

Authors: Peter Sokol-Hessner, Catherine A. Hartley, Jeffrey R. Hamilton, Elizabeth A. Phelps

Institutions: New York University, Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research

Language: English

Topic: Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Subfield: General Decision Sciences

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute on Aging