A multinational analysis of how emotions relate to economic decisions regarding time or risk

Samuel M. Pertl (), Tara Srirangarajan and Oleg Urminsky
Additional contact information
Samuel M. Pertl: Stanford Graduate School of Business
Tara Srirangarajan: Stanford University
Oleg Urminsky: University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Nature Human Behaviour, 2024, vol. 8, issue 11, 2139-2155

Abstract: Abstract Emotions have been theorized to be important drivers of economic choices, such as intertemporal or risky decisions. Our systematic review and meta-analysis of the previous literature (378 results and 50,972 participants) indicates that the empirical basis for these claims is mixed and the cross-cultural generalizability of these claims has yet to be systematically tested. We analysed a dataset with representative samples from 74 countries (n = 77,242), providing a multinational test of theoretical claims that individuals’ ongoing emotional states predict their economic preferences regarding time or risk. Overall, more positive self-reported emotions generally predicted a willingness to wait for delayed rewards or to take favourable risks, in line with some existing theories. Contrary to the assumption of a universal relationship between emotions and decision-making, we show that these relationships vary substantially and systematically across countries. Emotions were stronger predictors of economic decisions in more economically developed and individualistic countries.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01927-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:8:y:2024:i:11:d:10.1038_s41562-024-01927-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01927-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().