Votinov Mikhail, Knyazeva Irina, Habel Ute, Konrad Kerstin, Puiu Andrei A
Research Center Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, JARA-Institute Brain Structure Function Relationship (INM 10), Julich, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Front Neurosci. 2022 Jul 20;16:858168. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.858168. eCollection 2022.
Financial risk-taking and loss aversion are multifaceted phenomena that are the focus of neuroscience, psychology, and economics research. A growing number of studies highlighted the role of hormones (particularly of testosterone) on socio-economic decision-making. However, the effects of testosterone on risk-taking under framing and consumer-based choices and preferences are inconclusive. We investigated the effects of 100 mg testosterone administration on aspects of decision-making within the Prospect Theory framework which is the most used descriptive model of decision-making under risk. We assessed risk-taking under framing and the endowment effect (effect of possession) using Bayesian modeling. Forty men participated in this double-blind placebo-controlled fully-randomized cross-over experiment and performed two tasks. One was a risk-taking task with binary choices under positive and negative framing associated with different probabilities. In the second task participants had to bid money for hedonic and utilitarian items. We observed a significant increase in serum testosterone concentrations after transdermal application. Compared to placebo, testosterone administration increased risk-taking under the positive framing (very large effect size) and decreased under the negative framing (moderate to small). The sensitivity to gain was positive in each framing. Our model showed that decision-making is jointly influenced by testosterone and the trade-off between gains and losses. However, while the endowment effect was more pronounced for hedonic than for utilitarian items, the effect was independent of testosterone. The findings provide novel information on the complex modulatory role of testosterone on risk-taking within the framework of prospect theory and shed light on mechanisms of behavioral economic biases. The proposed models of effects of individual differences in testosterone on risk-taking could be used as predictive models for reference-depended behavior under positive and negative framing with low and high probabilities.
金融冒险和损失规避是多方面的现象，是神经科学、心理学和经济学研究的焦点。越来越多的研究强调了激素（尤其是睾酮）在社会经济决策中的作用。然而，睾酮对框架效应下的冒险行为以及基于消费者的选择和偏好的影响尚无定论。我们在前景理论框架内研究了100毫克睾酮给药对决策方面的影响，前景理论是风险决策中最常用的描述性模型。我们使用贝叶斯模型评估了框架效应下的冒险行为和禀赋效应（所有权效应）。40名男性参与了这项双盲安慰剂对照的完全随机交叉实验，并完成了两项任务。一项是在与不同概率相关的正负框架下进行二元选择的冒险任务。在第二项任务中，参与者必须为享乐性和实用性物品出价。我们观察到经皮给药后血清睾酮浓度显著增加。与安慰剂相比，睾酮给药增加了正框架下的冒险行为（效应量非常大），并降低了负框架下的冒险行为（中等至小）。在每种框架下，对收益的敏感性都是正的。我们的模型表明，决策受到睾酮以及收益与损失之间权衡的共同影响。然而，虽然禀赋效应在享乐性物品上比在实用性物品上更明显，但该效应与睾酮无关。这些发现为睾酮在前景理论框架内对冒险行为的复杂调节作用提供了新信息，并揭示了行为经济偏差的机制。所提出的睾酮个体差异对冒险行为影响的模型可作为预测模型，用于参考在低概率和高概率的正负框架下的依赖参考行为。
