The Influence of Psychological Distance and Life-impact on the Risk Decision-making Involving Physical Safety

Abstract

Abstract: Previous studies found that people often had different risk preference when they made decisions for themselves or for different others. But the result is not always the case when it comes to the decision scenarios with different life-impact. To explore the difference of risk preference for themselves or for others when decision makers facing different life-impact tasks in physical safety scenarios, in experiment 1 we manipulated the psychological distance by interpersonal closeness, and life-impact by the extent of negative effect the decision caused. The results showed that participants were more risk seeking in low life-impact scenarios than in high life-impact scenarios. Regardless of the life-impact was high or not, participants’ decisions for themselves and strangers were riskier than for the best friends. This result might be related to the perceived decision responsibility. So in experiment 2 the variable of decision responsibility was introduced to explore whether it mediated the effect of psychological distance on risk decision, and the result verified our hypothesis.

Key words: psychological distance, life-impact, risk decision, physical safety decisions, decision responsibility

摘要： 已有研究发现决策者在为自己与不同他人决策时，其风险偏好存在差异。但是当对后果严重性不同的事件进行决策时，上述结果也并不总是如此。为了探究在人身安全情境中决策者面对后果严重程度不同的任务时，为自己和为他人决策时风险偏好的差异，实验一采用人际亲密度和决策所带来消极结果的严重程度分别操纵心理距离与后果严重性，结果发现决策者在后果严重任务中的决策比后果不严重任务更保守，为自己和为陌生人决策均比为最好朋友决策更冒险。这可能是由于决策者知觉到的决策责任不同所致。因此在实验一的基础上实验二引入决策责任这一变量，考察其在心理距离对风险决策影响中的作用，研究结果证明了我们的假设。

关键词: 心理距离, 后果严重性, 风险偏好, 人身安全, 决策责任

CLC Number:

B849

REN Yubing, DU Xiufang. The Influence of Psychological Distance and Life-impact on the Risk Decision-making Involving Physical Safety[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2018, 16(3): 327-334.

任玉冰, 杜秀芳. 心理距离与后果严重性对人身安全决策的影响[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2018, 16(3): 327-334.

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