IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v98y2014icp29-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Let me dream on!’ Anticipatory emotions and preference for timing in lotteries

Author

Listed:
  • Kocher, Martin G.
  • Krawczyk, Michal
  • van Winden, Frans

Abstract

We analyze one of the explanations why people participate in lotteries. Our hypothesis stipulates that part of the value that a unit of money buys in lotteries is consumed before the actual resolution in the form of emotions such as hope. In other words, a person holding a lottery ticket may prefer a delayed resolution of risk due to positive anticipatory emotions. This conjecture is tested in an experiment with real lottery tickets. We show that our theoretical considerations may contribute to explaining empirical puzzles associated with lottery participation, timing of resolution and the spreading of lots over drawings. More specifically, we find that a substantial minority of participants prefer delayed resolution, that anticipated thrill is the main variable explaining this choice, and that emotions actually experienced during the waiting period are indeed predominantly positive and correlated with predictions. Finally, we find that a great majority prefers to ‘spread’ chances, that is, to obtain one ticket for each of two drawings rather than two for the same drawing.

Suggested Citation

  • Kocher, Martin G. & Krawczyk, Michal & van Winden, Frans, 2014. "‘Let me dream on!’ Anticipatory emotions and preference for timing in lotteries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 29-40.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:98:y:2014:i:c:p:29-40
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2013.12.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268113003041
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2013.12.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Garrett, 2001. "An International Comparison and Analysis of Lotteries and the Distribution of Lottery Expenditures," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 213-227.
    2. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    3. David Forrest & Robert Simmons & Neil Chesters, 2002. "Buying a Dream: Alternative Models of Demand for Lotto," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 485-496, July.
    4. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1993. "Notes: The "Gambler's Fallacy" in Lottery Play," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(12), pages 1521-1525, December.
    5. Zeelenberg, Marcel & Pieters, Rik, 2004. "Consequences of regret aversion in real life: The case of the Dutch postcode lottery," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 155-168, March.
    6. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    7. van Winden, Frans & Krawczyk, Michal & Hopfensitz, Astrid, 2011. "Investment, resolution of risk, and the role of affect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 918-939.
    8. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    9. Emily Haisley & Romel Mostafa & George Loewenstein, 2008. "Myopic risk-seeking: The impact of narrow decision bracketing on lottery play," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 57-75, August.
    10. William Chan & Pascal Courty & Li Hao, 2009. "Suspense: Dynamic Incentives in Sports Contests," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 24-46, January.
    11. Chew, Soo Hong & Ho, Joanna L, 1994. "Hope: An Empirical Study of Attitude toward the Timing of Uncertainty Resolution," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 267-288, May.
    12. Loewenstein, George, 1987. "Anticipation and the Valuation of Delayed Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 666-684, September.
    13. Clotfelter, Charles T & Cook, Philip J, 1991. "Lotteries in the Real World," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 227-232, July.
    14. Luigi Mittone & Lucia Savadori, 2008. "Influence of time delay on choice between gambles: Savoring the emotion," CEEL Working Papers 0802, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    15. Amrei M. Lahno & Marta Serra-Garcia, 2012. "Peer Effects in Risk Taking," CESifo Working Paper Series 4057, CESifo.
    16. Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2001. "Psychological Expected Utility Theory and Anticipatory Feelings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(1), pages 55-79.
    17. Charles Noussair & Ping Wu, 2006. "Risk tolerance in the present and the future: an experimental study," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 401-412.
    18. Chris Starmer, 2000. "Developments in Non-expected Utility Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 332-382, June.
    19. George Wu, 1999. "Anxiety and Decision Making with Delayed Resolution of Uncertainty," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 159-199, April.
    20. George Wu & Richard Gonzalez, 1996. "Curvature of the Probability Weighting Function," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(12), pages 1676-1690, December.
    21. Ido Erev & Ernan Haruvy, 2010. "Two-stage lotteries and the value of unresolved uncertainty," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 149-162, June.
    22. Tversky, Amos & Wakker, Peter, 1995. "Risk Attitudes and Decision Weights," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(6), pages 1255-1280, November.
    23. Lahno, Amrei M. & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2012. "Peer Effects in Risk Taking," Discussion Papers in Economics 14309, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    24. Zeelenberg, M. & Pieters, R., 2004. "Consequences of regret aversion in real life : The case of the Dutch postcode lottery," Other publications TiSEM d16cb90a-f96c-4fce-b4c7-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Bennett & Stefan Bode & Maja Brydevall & Hayley Warren & Carsten Murawski, 2016. "Intrinsic Valuation of Information in Decision Making under Uncertainty," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-21, July.
    2. Florian Zimmermann, 2015. "Clumped or Piecewise? Evidence on Preferences for Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(4), pages 740-753, April.
    3. Johannes Buckenmaier & Eugen Dimant & Ann-Christin Posten & Ulrich Schmidt, 2021. "Efficient Institutions and Effective Deterrence: On Timing and Uncertainty of Formal Sanctions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 177-201, April.
    4. van Winden, Frans & Krawczyk, Michal & Hopfensitz, Astrid, 2011. "Investment, resolution of risk, and the role of affect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 918-939.
    5. Luca David Opromolla & Michele Dell'Era, 2018. "A General Equilibrium Theory of Occupational Choice under Optimistic Beliefs about Entrepreneurial Ability," Working Papers w201822, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    6. Raman Kachurka & Michał Wiktor Krawczyk, 2020. "Lottery "strategies": monetizing players' behavioral biases," Working Papers 2020-29, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    7. Yan, Jubo & Kniffin, Kevin M. & Kunreuther, Howard C. & Schulze, William D., 2020. "The roles of reason and emotion in private and public responses to terrorism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 778-796.
    8. Schwardmann, Peter, 2019. "Motivated health risk denial and preventative health care investments," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 78-92.
    9. Ananda Ganguly & Joshua Tasoff, 2017. "Fantasy and Dread: The Demand for Information and the Consumption Utility of the Future," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4037-4060, December.
    10. Martijn J. Burger & Martijn Hendriks & Emma Pleeging & Jan C. Ours, 2020. "The joy of lottery play: evidence from a field experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(4), pages 1235-1256, December.
    11. Bosman, Ronald & Kräussl, Roman & van Galen, Thomas, 2014. "Emotions-at-risk: An experimental investigation into emotions, option prices and risk perception," CFS Working Paper Series 495, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    12. Falk, Armin & Zimmermann, Florian, 2016. "Beliefs and Utility: Experimental Evidence on Preferences for Information," IZA Discussion Papers 10172, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Chen, Zhuo, 2022. "Preference for hope: A behavioral definition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    14. Ambuehl, Sandro & Li, Shengwu, 2018. "Belief updating and the demand for information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 21-39.
    15. Juliane Zenker & Andreas Wagener & Sebastian Vollmer, 2018. "Better Knowledge Need Not Affect Behavior: A Randomized Evaluation of the Demand for Lottery Tickets in Rural Thailand," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 32(3), pages 570-583.
    16. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Enrico Diecidue & Emmanuel Kemel & Ayse Onculer, 2021. "Temporal Risk Resolution: Utility versus Probability Weighting Approaches," Working Papers hal-03330225, HAL.
    17. Can Xu & Andreas Steiner & Jakob de Haan, 2023. "Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Encourage Gambling? Evidence from the Chinese Welfare Lottery Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 10241, CESifo.
    18. Nielsen, Kirby, 2020. "Preferences for the resolution of uncertainty and the timing of information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    19. David Dillenberger & Uzi Segal, 2021. "Allocation Mechanisms without Reduction," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 455-470, December.
    20. M. J. Burger & M. Hendriks & E. Pleeging & P. W. van der Zwan, 2016. "The silver linings of lottery play: motivation and subjective well-being of British lottery participants," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(18), pages 1312-1316, December.
    21. Jieyao Ding, 2011. "What Numbers to Choose for My Lottery Ticket? Behavior Anomalies in the Chinese Online Lottery Market," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_23, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    22. Sebastian Ebert, 2021. "Prudent Discounting: Experimental Evidence On Higher Order Time Risk Preferences," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1489-1511, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Epper & Helga Fehr-Duda, 2012. "The missing link: unifying risk taking and time discounting," ECON - Working Papers 096, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Oct 2018.
    2. van Winden, Frans & Krawczyk, Michal & Hopfensitz, Astrid, 2011. "Investment, resolution of risk, and the role of affect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 918-939.
    3. Jinrui Pan & Craig S. Webb & Horst Zank, 2019. "Delayed probabilistic risk attitude: a parametric approach," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 201-232, September.
    4. Thomas Epper & Helga Fehr-Duda & Adrian Bruhin, 2011. "Viewing the future through a warped lens: Why uncertainty generates hyperbolic discounting," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 169-203, December.
    5. Fehr-Duda, Helga & Epper, Thomas & Bruhin, Adrian & Schubert, Renate, 2011. "Risk and rationality: The effects of mood and decision rules on probability weighting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 14-24.
    6. Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Arthur van Soest & Erik Wengstrom, 2011. "Heterogeneity in Risky Choice Behavior in a Broad Population," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 664-694, April.
    7. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Enrico Diecidue & Ayse Öncüler, 2011. "Risk Preferences at Different Time Periods: An Experimental Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 975-987, May.
    8. Stracca, Livio, 2004. "Behavioral finance and asset prices: Where do we stand?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 373-405, June.
    9. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel & Guryan, Jonathan & Hyndman, Kyle & Kearney, Melissa & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2015. "Do lottery payments induce savings behavior? Evidence from the lab," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-24.
    10. Gul, Faruk & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 2015. "Hurwicz expected utility and subjective sources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 465-488.
    11. Víctor González-Jiménez, 2021. "Incentive contracts when agents distort probabilities," Vienna Economics Papers vie2101, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    12. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Enrico Diecidue & Emmanuel Kemel & Ayse Onculer, 2022. "Temporal Risk: Utility vs. Probability Weighting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5162-5186, July.
    13. Astrid Hopfensitz & Frans Winden, 2008. "Dynamic Choice, Independence and Emotions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 64(2), pages 249-300, March.
    14. Michael Kilka & Martin Weber, 2001. "What Determines the Shape of the Probability Weighting Function Under Uncertainty?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(12), pages 1712-1726, December.
    15. L'Haridon, Olivier, 2009. "Behavior in the loss domain: An experiment using the probability trade-off consistency condition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 540-551, August.
    16. Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Arthur van Soest & Erik Wengstrom, 2011. "Heterogeneity in Risky Choice Behavior in a Broad Population," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 664-694, April.
    17. Víctor González-Jiménez, 2021. "Incentive contracts when agents distort probabilities," Vienna Economics Papers 2101, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    18. Alexander L. Brown & Hwagyun Kim, 2014. "Do Individuals Have Preferences Used in Macro-Finance Models? An Experimental Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 939-958, April.
    19. Larry G. Epstein, 2008. "Living with Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1121-1141.
    20. Helga Fehr-Duda & Adrian Bruhin & Thomas Epper & Renate Schubert, 2010. "Rationality on the rise: Why relative risk aversion increases with stake size," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 147-180, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    C93; D81; Lotteries; Anticipatory emotions; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:98:y:2014:i:c:p:29-40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.