Evolutionary hypotheses of risk-sensitive choice: Age differences and perspective change

Abstract

This study tested specific predictions of risk preference in human choice derived from evolutionary hypotheses. The overall choice pattern revealed that subjects receiving a life-death decision problem described in a family context favored a risky probabilistic outcome over a statistically equivalent deterministic outcome. As predicted, the degree of such risk proneness varied as a function of sociobiologically important variables: the subject's age, their perspective, and the age cues about the hypothetical relatives saved in the deterministic outcome. Compared to young subjects, middle-aged subjects were much more prone to the deterministic outcome when it implied saving their younger family members but were extremely risk-seeking in favor of the probabilistic outcome when the deterministic choice resulted in the survival of older relatives. In contrast, the young subjects equally valued the younger and older hypothetical relatives and indistinguishably favored the probabilistic outcome under both saving-young and saving-old conditions. However, by changing the perspective of the young subjects from their own family to someone else's family, the saving-young deterministic outcome became more attractive than the saving-old deterministic outcome, resulting in differentiated risk-preference patterns. These results indicate an evolutionary origin of human reasoning and decision mechanisms that are sensitive to the biological characteristics of both decision makers and decision recipients.