Pursuit of emotional satisfaction leads to increased risk taking in final decisions

Risk taking increases during the final round of a set of repeated risky decisions, a phenomenon known as the ending effect. Recent evidence suggests that the motivation to pursue an emotionally rewarding ending may account for this ending effect. This study tested this explanation using different task paradigms. Experiment 1 ruled out a financial motivational explanation for the ending effect. Specifically, when risk taking was only associated with emotional incentives without financial rewards, the ending effect remained significant. Experiment 2a demonstrated that the ending effect was robust after controlling for the relevant variables. Experiment 2b measured participants’ motivation using a visual reaction time task. The results revealed that perceiving an ending led participants to be more concerned with emotional satisfaction than financial rewards. These findings consistently support the notion that the perception of an approaching ending leads to an increase in emotional rather than financial motivation, and this increased emotional motivation could lead to increased risk-taking toward an ending. This study also ruled out the alternative explanation that the ending effect is driven by the need for financial rewards.