Recent research from Italy has shown that inducing fear in women causes them to discount the future more steeply than men and to focus more on immediate monetary rewards. In contrast, the emotional state did not influence men’s decisions regarding monetary rewards. The study was published in PLOS One.
Decision-making is the cognitive process of choosing a course of action from multiple alternatives. It typically starts with identifying a problem or decision point, followed by the collection and analysis of relevant information. Individuals or groups then assess the potential outcomes of various options, considering factors such as benefits, risks, costs, and personal values or preferences. This evaluation often involves comparing the potential impacts of each choice, using either intuitive judgment or more formal, systematic methods.
A person’s emotional state, cognitive biases, social pressures, and past experiences can all influence the decision-making process. These factors affect how attractive or feasible different options appear. In everyday decisions, individuals frequently face trade-offs between short-term and long-term benefits and costs. Often, they must choose between waiting for a larger but delayed reward or opting for a smaller, immediate one.
Examples of such decisions include choosing between investing to grow funds for future use or spending them immediately. Another example is choosing between pursuing further education, which can lead to higher future earnings, or working immediately at lower rates. This process of comparing and deciding whether it is better to wait for a larger reward or accept an immediate smaller one is known as delay discounting.
Study author Eleonora Fiorenzato and her colleagues aimed to explore how emotions and gender affect delay discounting. They conducted an online experiment where they induced emotions in participants by showing them movie clips proven to evoke specific feelings and had them participate in a computerized task involving hypothetical monetary rewards.
The researchers hypothesized that fear would lead individuals to prefer immediate rewards, viewing them as less risky. Conversely, happiness was expected to lead to perceptions of predictability, fostering optimistic risk assessments and a greater willingness to wait for larger, albeit risky, delayed rewards.
The study involved 308 participants who completed an online survey hosted on the Qualtrics platform. The researchers recruited participants by distributing the survey across various platforms and encouraged participants to share it further, expanding respondent numbers. Participation was voluntary and uncompensated.
The survey system randomly assigned participants into three groups. One group watched 2-minute clips intended to evoke fear (thrilling scenes of anticipated threats), another group viewed clips that induced joy (scenery that elicited joy or happiness, featuring stunning natural landscapes), and the third group saw neutral clips (scenes from urban documentaries). Each group was shown four different clips to ensure consistency in emotional induction.
After watching a clip, participants completed a delay discounting task. This task involved several trials where participants had to choose between two virtual monetary amounts: a smaller immediate sum (e.g., 20,000 EUR today) or a larger sum available at a later date (e.g., 40,000 EUR in one to ten years).
Participants also completed assessments of their affective experience (using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule), depression, anxiety, and stress (using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21), and impulsivity (using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale).
Results showed that women exhibited higher delay discounting than men after viewing clips that induced fear. This suggests that fear made them more inclined to choose immediate rewards over delayed ones. There were no gender differences after viewing joyful or neutral clips. Compared to the joyous state, women discounted more steeply after experiencing fear, but not after the neutral condition.
“We found an increased tendency to opt for immediate rewards by women when in a fearful condition—as opposed to men. Also, women were more prone to choose immediate rewards when in a fearful condition, than when in a positive state of joy/happiness. By contrast, when in a positive or neutral emotional state, females and males did not differ,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on gender differences in decision-making. However, it should be noted that the study utilized hypothetical monetary amounts in an online experiment. Also, emotions induced by clips were most likely not particularly strong and temporary. Results might not be the same if decision making in real life situations and under stronger emotions was considered.
The paper, “Gender differences in the effects of emotion induction on intertemporal decision-making,” was authored by Eleonora Fiorenzato, Patrizia Bisiacchi, and Giorgia Cona.