Xing Cai, Meng Yuqi, Isaacowitz Derek M, Song Yunqiang, Cai Jiajie
Department of Psychology, Center for Social Psychology and Brain Sciences, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2019 Jan 17;9:2717. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02717. eCollection 2018.
The ending effect describes the phenomenon that individuals are more risk-taking during the final round of a series of risky decision tasks. Previous research suggests that the ending effect might be caused by a motivational shift induced by changes in time perception. However, none of the existing research directly tested the motivational state immediately before the last round of a series of risky decision tasks. To fill in this gap of knowledge, the present study tested whether this motivational shift indeed occurs immediately before the last round. All participants worked on 11 rounds of risky decision tasks, half of them knew that the decision tasks included 11 rounds, whereas the other half did not know. Before the last round of the risky decision tasks, all participants completed a visual reaction time task. It was found that, compared with participants who were not aware of the impending ending, those who knew they were approaching the last round responded to peripherally located character strings appearing immediately after gain-related words slower than those appearing after loss-related words, suggesting that perceived endings lead participants to be more motivated toward gaining rewards. This work provides critical evidence which supports the motivational account of the ending effect proposed in previous research. Such a finding would represent a next step in unpacking the psychological consequences of perceived endings in everyday life.
在一系列风险决策任务的最后一轮中，个体更倾向于冒险。先前的研究表明，结束效应可能是由时间感知变化所引发的动机转变导致的。然而，现有的研究均未直接测试在一系列风险决策任务的最后一轮之前个体的动机状态。为填补这一知识空白，本研究测试了这种动机转变是否确实在最后一轮之前立即发生。所有参与者都进行了11轮风险决策任务，其中一半参与者知道决策任务包含11轮，而另一半并不知道。在风险决策任务的最后一轮之前，所有参与者都完成了一项视觉反应时任务。结果发现，与未意识到即将结束的参与者相比，那些知道自己正在接近最后一轮的参与者，对在与收益相关词汇之后立即出现的位于周边的字符串的反应，比对在与损失相关词汇之后出现的字符串的反应更慢，这表明对结束的感知会使参与者更有动力去获取奖励。这项研究提供了关键证据，支持了先前研究中提出的关于结束效应的动机解释。这样的发现将代表在揭示日常生活中对结束的感知所产生的心理后果方面迈出的下一步。
