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1. Relationship between Delay Discounting and Risk Preference in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Humans

   Keupp, Stefanie; Grueneisen, Sebastian; Warneken, Felix; Ludvig, Elliot Andrew; Melis, Alicia P. (July 2021, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society)

   Adaptive decisions require that decision makers factor in the subjective values of different possible outcomes, and the probability of these outcomes occurring. Subjective values depend, among other things, on how far an outcome is away in time. This can be captured by assessing an individual’s delay discounting of different options. An individual’s risk preference also affects how attractive particular choice options appear to them. In humans, probability discounting and delay discounting are often related. People who show more risky behaviors also tend to be more impulsive and less patient. Based on such findings, single-process models of delay discounting and probability discounting have been suggested. In the current study, we tested if this relationship is equally present in chimpanzees, one of human’s closest extant evolutionary relatives. We presented 23 chimpanzees with a patience task and a risky-choice task. The patience task was designed to explicitly distinguish between delay preference and self-control (i.e., the ability to wait a given delay). Still, we found no strong correlations between risk and delay preferences. As this task has not been used with humans before, we implemented a computerized version and tested it in a sample of twenty adult participants. Initial results indicate that the task is well suited to capture patience, and it makes a promising candidate to be used in behavioral delay discounting experiments in humans. 

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2. Development and Validation of the Calculated and Spontaneous Risk‐Taking Scale (CASPRT)

   https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.70020  

   Zhang, Don C; Smith, Rachel Williamson (July 2025, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making)

   ABSTRACT Risk preference is a key concept across social, economic, and decision sciences. While existing measures assess risk taking either as domain‐specific preferences (e.g., finance and health) or as a general trait, they have largely overlooked individual differences in the narrow, domain‐general aspects of risk preference. Drawing from a dual‐process framework, we advance a multidimensional domain‐general measure of risk preference. We develop and validate the Calculated and Spontaneous Risk‐Taking Scale across seven studies (N = 2116). Results show (1) the two risk styles are moderately correlated and align with existing risk preference measures; (2) they are distinct from personality traits like the Big Five and cognitive traits like decision style; (3) calculated risk‐takers show more variability in risk attitudes across contexts; (4) calculated risk‐taking predicts adaptive outcomes (e.g., creativity and entrepreneurship), while spontaneous risk‐taking predicts maladaptive behaviors (e.g., crime, safety violations); and (5) the scale is invariant across sex and age. Overall, calculated risk‐takers engage in more adaptive risks, leading to healthier, more meaningful lives. 

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3. Variation in primate decision-making under uncertainty and the roots of human economic behaviour

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0671  

   De Petrillo, Francesca; Rosati, Alexandra G. (March 2021, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   Uncertainty is a ubiquitous component of human economic behaviour, yet people can vary in their preferences for risk across populations, individuals and different points in time. As uncertainty also characterizes many aspects of animal decision-making, comparative research can help evaluate different potential mechanisms that generate this variation, including the role of biological differences or maturational change versus cultural learning, as well as identify human-unique components of economic decision-making. Here, we examine decision-making under risk across non-human primates, our closest relatives. We first review theoretical approaches and current methods for understanding decision-making in animals. We then assess the current evidence for variation in animal preferences between species and populations, between individuals based on personality, sex and age, and finally, between different contexts and individual states. We then use these primate data to evaluate the processes that can shape human decision-making strategies and identify the primate foundations of human economic behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Existence and prevalence of economic behaviours among non-human primates’. 

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4. Sex moderates the effects of total sleep deprivation and sleep restriction on risk preference

   https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsac120  

   Lim, Jeryl Y. L.; Boardman, Johanna; Dyche, Jeff; Anderson, Clare; Dickinson, David L.; Drummond, Sean P. A. (June 2022, Sleep)

   Abstract Sleep loss has been shown to alter risk preference during decision-making. However, research in this area has largely focussed on the effects of total sleep deprivation (TSD), while evidence on the effects of sleep restriction (SR) or the potentially moderating role of sex on risk preference remains scarce and unclear. The present study investigated risky decision-making in 47 healthy young adults who were assigned to either of two counterbalanced protocols: well-rested (WR) and TSD, or WR and SR. Participants were assessed on the Lottery Choice Task (LCT), which requires a series of choices between two risky gambles with varying risk levels. Analyses on the pooled dataset indicated across all sleep conditions, participants were generally more risk-seeking when trying to minimise financial loss (LOSSES) than while trying to maximise financial gain (GAINS). On GAINS trials, female participants were more risk-averse during TSD and SR, whereas male participants remained unchanged. On LOSSES trials, female participants remained unchanged during TSD and SR, whereas male participants became more risk-seeking during TSD. Our findings suggest the relationship between sleep loss and risk preference is moderated by sex, whereby changes in risk preference after TSD or SR differ in men and women depending on whether the decision is framed in terms of gains or losses. 

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5. Using dynamic monitoring of choices to predict and understand risk preferences

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2010056117  

   Stillman, Paul E.; Krajbich, Ian; Ferguson, Melissa J. (November 2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Navigating conflict is integral to decision-making, serving a central role both in the subjective experience of choice as well as contemporary theories of how we choose. However, the lack of a sensitive, accessible, and interpretable metric of conflict has led researchers to focus on choice itself rather than how individuals arrive at that choice. Using mouse-tracking—continuously sampling computer mouse location as participants decide—we demonstrate the theoretical and practical uses of dynamic assessments of choice from decision onset through conclusion. Specifically, we use mouse tracking to index conflict, quantified by the relative directness to the chosen option, in a domain for which conflict is integral: decisions involving risk. In deciding whether to accept risk, decision makers must integrate gains, losses, status quos, and outcome probabilities, a process that inevitably involves conflict. Across three preregistered studies, we tracked participants’ motor movements while they decided whether to accept or reject gambles. Our results show that 1) mouse-tracking metrics of conflict sensitively detect differences in the subjective value of risky versus certain options; 2) these metrics of conflict strongly predict participants’ risk preferences (loss aversion and decreasing marginal utility), even on a single-trial level; 3) these mouse-tracking metrics outperform participants’ reaction times in predicting risk preferences; and 4) manipulating risk preferences via a broad versus narrow bracketing manipulation influences conflict as indexed by mouse tracking. Together, these results highlight the importance of measuring conflict during risky choice and demonstrate the usefulness of mouse tracking as a tool to do so. 

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