Skip to main content
Article
Two Selves and Two Minds in a Longitudinal Survey of Risk Attitudes
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance (2021)
  • Jessica Campara, Federal University of Santa Catarina
  • Newton Da Costa Jr, Federal University of Santa Catarina
  • Raul Matsushita, University of Brasilia
  • Sergio Da Silva, Federal University of Santa Catarina
Abstract
We examine how individual metacognitive differences and the two selves – the​ experiencing and remembering selves – are related to individual risk attitudes. To track how the experiencing self makes judgments, participants in an experiment are primed over six weeks with macroeconomic and political news in an ecologically relevant period of a presidential election. Every Friday, the participants indicate their willingness to take risks at the moment. In Week 7, all participants are asked to rate the total experience of the six weeks. Rather than reporting hedonimeter totals, they show duration neglect and only the final moment matters for the retrospective judgment. Moreover, individual risk tolerance is higher when assessed by the remembering self than when judged by the experiencing self. Also, higher metacognitive ability is associated with higher levels of risk tolerance. However, participants of higher metacognitive ability still cannot avoid the System 1 bias of duration neglect. This is the first empirical work explicitly relating the two selves and Systems 1 and 2 thinking processes.
Keywords
  • Two selves,
  • Cognitive reflection,
  • Risk attitudes,
  • Individual risk tolerance,
  • Longitudinal survey
Disciplines
Publication Date
March, 2021
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2020.100444
Citation Information
Jessica Campara, Newton Da Costa Jr, Raul Matsushita and Sergio Da Silva. "Two Selves and Two Minds in a Longitudinal Survey of Risk Attitudes" Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance Vol. 29 Iss. C (2021) p. 100444
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/sergiodasilva/262/