Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Sandra L. Schneider

Committee Member

Jennifer L. O'Brien

Committee Member

Ruthann Atchley

Committee Member

Jonathan Rottenberg

Keywords

choice strategy, affect-rich, affect-poor, probability, willingness-to-pay

Abstract

People respond to decisions differently when emotion is involved. The affect gap hypothesissuggests that people are more likely to focus on the outcome and ignore probabilities of outcomes when emotions are strong, and people are likely to include consideration of probabilities with outcomes when emotions are weak. However, typical methodologies have a confound in the manipulation of affect, with affect-poor outcomes that are quantitative in nature (e.g., money) and affect-rich outcomes that are typically qualitative (e.g., experiences). To address this confound, I created a mixed factorial design to examine choices made in lottery pairs manipulated by intensity (low, high), outcome type (monetary, experiences), and valence (positive, negative). Intensity is a cleaner, more direct measure of the strength of affect, and it allowed us to consider multiple levels of the same outcome type. The primary goal of the study was to evaluate differences in choice strategy use, looking not only for an affect gap but also possibly a compatibility gap in which people are more likely to incorporate probability with outcome when there is a quantitative outcome than when there is a qualitative outcome, or potentially a precision gap in which people can integrate information easier when there is a precise outcome measure than when there is a much less precise measure like one’s willingness-to-pay for an outcome. As expected, participants used an expected-value type of strategy more when outcomes were monetary than when they were experiences. In a reversal of the affect gap hypothesis, however, participants tended to make more choices using an expected-value type of strategy when outcomes were high-intensity rather than when they were low- intensity. After controlling for the precision gap, the difference in strategy use between monetary gains and positive experiences decreased and the role of outcome intensity became stronger, but both of these findings only occurred in the positive domain. Moreover, because neither affect differences nor precision differences could account for outcome type effects, strategy use differences may rely more on the greater compatibility of quantitative probabilities with monetary outcomes than with experience outcomes.

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