Understanding everyday life risk attitudes

Humans make judgments and decisions under conditions of uncertainty all the time in their everyday lives. We may perceive situations as risky if we are not sure if the outcomes, especially negative ones, will happen or not. Attitudes towards risk have long been of interest to researchers in psychology in order to understand its impact on decision making and mental health. Our behaviours and decisions in a situation that involves risk are influenced by both our cognitive evaluations and emotional feelings in that decision situation. We also vary risk attitudes across different decision domains (such as finance, social interaction and health) as a result of the different marginal values ascribed to different outcomes.

In this research seminar, Dr Yiyun Shou, Research Fellow at The Australian National University, will discuss recent research findings on how various factors, such as one’s prior belief and different kinds of emotions, can influence our judgments in situations that involve risk. She will also discuss how we can better measure risk attitudes in research settings. Finally, Dr Shou will demonstrate the application of domain specific risk attitudes in understanding the complexity of our daily behaviours, such as health lifestyles and disease preventive actions.