Sanders Jet G, Jenkins Rob
University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2016 Jul 8;11(7):e0159017. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159017. eCollection 2016.
Risk tolerance is fundamental to decision-making and behaviour. Here we show that individuals' tolerance of risk follows a weekly cycle. We observed this cycle directly in a behavioural experiment using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez et al., 2002; Study 1). We also observed it indirectly via voting intentions, gathered from 81,564 responses across 70 opinion polls ahead of the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014 (Study 2) and 149,064 responses across 77 opinion polls ahead of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum of 2016 (Study 3). In all three studies, risk-tolerance decreased from Monday to Thursday before returning to a higher level on Friday. This pattern is politically significant because UK elections and referendums are traditionally held on a Thursday-the lowest point for risk tolerance. In particular, it raises the possibility that voting outcomes in the UK could be systematically risk-averse. In line with our analysis, the actual proportion of Yes votes in the Scottish Independence Referendum was 4% lower than forecast. Taken together, our findings reveal that the seven-day weekly cycle may have unexpected consequences for human decision-making. They also suggest that the day on which a vote is held could determine its outcome.
风险承受能力是决策和行为的基础。我们在此表明，个体对风险的承受能力呈现出每周的周期性变化。我们通过使用气球模拟风险任务的行为实验直接观察到了这种周期（勒朱埃兹等人，2002年；研究1）。我们还通过投票意向间接观察到了这一周期，这些投票意向来自2014年苏格兰独立公投前70次民意调查中的81564份回应（研究2）以及2016年英国脱欧公投前77次民意调查中的149064份回应（研究3）。在所有这三项研究中，风险承受能力从周一到周四下降，然后在周五回升至较高水平。这种模式具有政治意义，因为英国的选举和公投传统上在周四举行——这是风险承受能力的最低点。特别是，这增加了英国投票结果可能系统性地规避风险的可能性。与我们的分析一致，苏格兰独立公投中实际的“赞成”票数比例比预测低4%。综合来看，我们的研究结果表明，每周七天的周期可能会对人类决策产生意想不到的影响。它们还表明，投票举行的日期可能会决定投票结果。
