Easy Losses or Hard Wins: Emotionality Obscuring the Positive Outcomes Associated with Frequent Losses

37 Pages Posted: 2 Oct 2017

See all articles by Zeynep Kutsal

Zeynep Kutsal

KU Leuven, Faculty of Business and Economics (FEB), Students

Siegfried Dewitte

KU Leuven - Faculty of Business and Economics (FEB)

Date Written: September 29, 2016

Abstract

Iowa Gambling Task studies have shown that individuals with intact emotional processing learn to prefer advantageous decks over disadvantageous decks. Recent research, however, has shown that the decision making of healthy participants is driven not only by the overall outcome but also by the loss frequency. Providing an alternative perspective on the effect of loss frequency, we look at the role of intensified emotional experiences of the outcomes on the ability to identify Iowa Gambling Task decks. We hypothesize that incongruence between the overall outcome and the loss frequency (i.e. advantageous deck with frequent losses and disadvantageous deck with infrequent losses) will impair decision making due to emotional mismarking. We test our hypothesis by using the original design and a modified design in which we decompose the four decks in order to get a better understanding of behavior related to each deck separately, independent of confounding parameters. In a series of three studies, we show that the increased emotionality impairs the ability to identify the incongruent advantageous deck due to misleading negative emotional feedback. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: Iowa Gambling Task, emotionality, somatic marker hypothesis, decision making

Suggested Citation

Kutsal, Zeynep and Dewitte, Siegfried, Easy Losses or Hard Wins: Emotionality Obscuring the Positive Outcomes Associated with Frequent Losses (September 29, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3045078 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3045078

Zeynep Kutsal (Contact Author)

KU Leuven, Faculty of Business and Economics (FEB), Students ( email )

Naamsestraat 69
Leuven, B-3000
Belgium

Siegfried Dewitte

KU Leuven - Faculty of Business and Economics (FEB) ( email )

Naamsestraat 69
Leuven, B-3000
Belgium

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