IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwsop/diw_sp1041.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Emotions, Risk Attitudes, and Patience

Author

Listed:
  • Armando N. Meier

Abstract

Previous work has shown that preferences are not always stable across time, but surprisingly little is known about the reasons for this instability. I examine whether variation in people’s emotions over time predicts changes in preferences. Using a large panel data set, I find that within-person changes in happiness, anger, and fear have substantial effects on risk attitudes and patience. Robustness checks indicate a limited role of alternative explanations. I further address potential endogeneity concerns by exploiting information about the death of a parent or child. This identification strategy confirms a large causal impact of emotions on preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Armando N. Meier, 2019. "Emotions, Risk Attitudes, and Patience," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1041, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.669343.de/diw_sp1041.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Gordon B. Dahl, 2011. "Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 103-143.
    2. Reto Odermatt & Alois Stutzer, 2019. "(Mis-)Predicted Subjective Well-Being Following Life Events," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 245-283.
    3. Baillon, Aurélien & Koellinger, Philipp D. & Treffers, Theresa, 2016. "Sadder but wiser: The effects of emotional states on ambiguity attitudes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 67-82.
    4. Breunig, Christoph & Huck, Steffen & Schmidt, Tobias & Weizsäcker, Georg, 2021. "The Standard Portfolio Choice Problem in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 131(638), pages 2413-2446.
    5. Thomas Dohmen & Simone Quercia & Jana Willrodt, 2018. "Willingness to take risk: The role of risk conception and optimism," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2018_023, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    6. Golsteyn, Bart H.H. & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah, 2017. "Challenges in Research on Preferences and Personality Traits: Measurement, Stability, and Inference," IZA Discussion Papers 10562, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Drerup, Tilman & Enke, Benjamin & von Gaudecker, Hans-Martin, 2017. "The precision of subjective data and the explanatory power of economic models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 200(2), pages 378-389.
    8. Chie Hanaoka & Hitoshi Shigeoka & Yasutora Watanabe, 2018. "Do Risk Preferences Change? Evidence from the Great East Japan Earthquake," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 298-330, April.
    9. Alex Imas, 2016. "The Realization Effect: Risk-Taking after Realized versus Paper Losses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2086-2109, August.
    10. Meier, Armando N. & Schmid, Lukas & Stutzer, Alois, 2019. "Rain, emotions and voting for the status quo," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 434-451.
    11. Thierry Post & Martijn J. van den Assem & Guido Baltussen & Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Deal or No Deal? Decision Making under Risk in a Large-Payoff Game Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 38-71, March.
    12. David A. Jaeger & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Holger Bonin, 2010. "Direct Evidence on Risk Attitudes and Migration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 684-689, August.
    13. Kettlewell, Nathan, 2019. "Risk preference dynamics around life events," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 66-84.
    14. Hetschko, Clemens & Preuss, Malte, 2020. "Income in jeopardy: How losing employment affects the willingness to take risks," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. Robert J. B. Goudie & Sach Mukherjee & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Andrew J. Oswald & Stephen Wu, 2011. "Happiness as a Driver of Risk-Avoiding Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 3451, CESifo.
    16. Guiso, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2018. "Time varying risk aversion," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(3), pages 403-421.
    17. David Cesarini & Christopher T. Dawes & Magnus Johannesson & Paul Lichtenstein & Björn Wallace, 2009. "Genetic Variation in Preferences for Giving and Risk Taking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 809-842.
    18. Andreas Knabe & Steffen Rätzel & Ronnie Schöb & Joachim Weimann, 2010. "Dissatisfied with Life but Having a Good Day: Time-use and Well-being of the Unemployed," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(547), pages 867-889, September.
    19. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & Hong Il Yoo, 2020. "Risk Attitudes, Sample Selection, and Attrition in a Longitudinal Field Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 552-568, July.
    20. Robert J. B. Goudie & Sach Mukherjee & Jan-Emmanuel Neve & Andrew J. Oswald & Stephen Wu, 2014. "Happiness as a Driver of Risk-avoiding Behaviour: Theory and an Empirical Study of Seatbelt Wearing and Automobile Accidents," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(324), pages 674-697, October.
    21. Schurer, Stefanie, 2015. "Lifecycle patterns in the socioeconomic gradient of risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 482-495.
    22. Anika K. Josef & David Richter & Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin & Gert G. Wagner & Ralph Hertwig & Rui Mata, 2016. "Stability and Change in Risk-Taking Propensity across the Adult Lifespan," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 816, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    23. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John A. List & Dana L. Suskind, 2017. "What Can We Learn from Experiments? Understanding the Threats to the Scalability of Experimental Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 282-286, May.
    24. Reto Foellmi & Stefan Legge & Lukas Schmid, 2016. "Do Professionals Get It Right? Limited Attention and Risk‐taking Behaviour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(592), pages 724-755, May.
    25. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    26. Hardardottir, Hjördis, 2017. "Long term stability of time preferences and the role of the macroeconomic situation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 21-36.
    27. John Ifcher & Homa Zarghamee, 2011. "Happiness and Time Preference: The Effect of Positive Affect in a Random-Assignment Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3109-3129, December.
    28. Galizzi, Matteo M. & Machado, Sara R. & Miniaci, Raffaele, 2016. "Temporal stability, cross-validity, and external validity of risk preferences measures: experimental evidence from a UK representative sample," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67554, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    29. Nicolás Salamanca, 2018. "The Dynamic Properties of Economic Preferences," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2018n04, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    30. Chuang, Yating & Schechter, Laura, 2015. "Stability of experimental and survey measures of risk, time, and social preferences: A review and some new results," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 151-170.
    31. Michael Callen & Mohammad Isaqzadeh & James D. Long & Charles Sprenger, 2014. "Violence and Risk Preference: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(1), pages 123-148, January.
    32. Ferdinand M. Vieider & Mathieu Lefebvre & Ranoua Bouchouicha & Thorsten Chmura & Rustamdjan Hakimov & Michal Krawczyk & Peter Martinsson, 2015. "Common Components Of Risk And Uncertainty Attitudes Across Contexts And Domains: Evidence From 30 Countries," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 421-452, June.
    33. Lerner, Jennifer & Han, Seunghee & Keltner, Dacher, 2007. "Feelings and Consumer Decision Making: Extending the Appraisal-Tendency Framework," Scholarly Articles 37143006, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    34. Alain Cohn & Jan Engelmann & Ernst Fehr & Michel André Maréchal, 2015. "Evidence for Countercyclical Risk Aversion: An Experiment with Financial Professionals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 860-885, February.
    35. Rui Mata & Renato Frey & David Richter & Jürgen Schupp & Ralph Hertwig, 2018. "Risk Preference: A View from Psychology," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 155-172, Spring.
    36. Ryan Brown & Verónica Montalva & Duncan Thomas & Andrea Velásquez, 2019. "Impact of Violent Crime on Risk Aversion: Evidence from the Mexican Drug War," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 892-904, December.
    37. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    38. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2011. "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 373-416.
    39. Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch, 2018. "Are Risk Preferences Stable?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 135-154, Spring.
    40. Bucciol, Alessandro & Zarri, Luca, 2015. "The shadow of the past: Financial risk taking and negative life events," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-16.
    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. Getik, Demid & Meier, Armando N., 2022. "Peer gender and mental health⁎," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 643-659.
    2. Meier, Armando N. & Schmid, Lukas & Stutzer, Alois, 2019. "Rain, emotions and voting for the status quo," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 434-451.
    3. Andersson, Ola & Campos-Mercade, Pol & Meier, Armando N. & Wengström, Erik, 2021. "Anticipation of COVID-19 vaccines reduces willingness to socially distance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Aronsson, Thomas & Hetschko, Clemens & Schöb, Ronnie, 2020. "Globalization, Time-Preferences, and Populist Voting," Umeå Economic Studies 978, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    5. Franco, Catalina & Mahadevan, Meera, 2021. "Behavioral dynamics in transitions from college to the workforce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 567-590.
    6. Deole, Sumit S. & Huang, Yue, 2020. "Suffering and prejudice: Do negative emotions predict immigration concerns?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 644, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Preuss, Malte, 2021. "Intra-individual stability of two survey measures on forward-looking attitude," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 201-227.
    8. Getik, Demid & Meier, Armando N., 2020. "Peer Gender and Mental Health," Working papers 2020/15, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    9. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Christian Krekel & George Ward, 2019. "Employee wellbeing, productivity and firm performance," CEP Discussion Papers dp1605, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    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. Armando N. Meier, 2021. "Emotions and Risk Attitudes," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1118, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Kettlewell, Nathan, 2019. "Risk preference dynamics around life events," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 66-84.
    3. Jetter, Michael & Magnusson, Leandro M. & Roth, Sebastian, 2020. "Becoming sensitive: Males’ risk and time preferences after the 2008 financial crisis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    4. Meier, Armando N. & Schmid, Lukas & Stutzer, Alois, 2019. "Rain, emotions and voting for the status quo," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 434-451.
    5. Hetschko, Clemens & Preuss, Malte, 2020. "Income in jeopardy: How losing employment affects the willingness to take risks," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Dietmar Fehr & Yannick Reichlin, 2021. "Status, Control Beliefs, and Risk-Taking," CESifo Working Paper Series 9253, CESifo.
    7. Fang, Guanfu & Li, Wei & Zhu, Ying, 2022. "The shadow of the epidemic: Long-term impacts of meningitis exposure on risk preference and behaviors," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    8. Jin, Miao & Liu, Yu-Jane & Meng, Juanjuan, 2019. "Fat-finger event and risk-taking behavior," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 126-143.
    9. Park, WooRam & Kim, Yongmi, 2022. "Air pollution and risk preference," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 566-579.
    10. Ferreira, Maria & de Grip, Andries & van der Velden, Rolf, 2018. "Does informal learning at work differ between temporary and permanent workers? Evidence from 20 OECD countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 18-40.
    11. Preuss, Malte, 2021. "Intra-individual stability of two survey measures on forward-looking attitude," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 201-227.
    12. Alessandro Bucciol & Alessio Hu & Luca Zarri, 2017. "The Effects of Prior Shocks on Managerial Risk Taking: Evidence from Italian Professional Soccer," Working Papers 17/2017, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    13. Luc Meunier & Sima Ohadi, 2021. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on Individuals' Risk and Time Preferences," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1050-1069.
    14. Innocenti, Stefania & Clark, Gordon L. & McGill, Sarah & Cuñado, Juncal, 2019. "The effect of past health events on intentions to purchase insurance: Evidence from 11 countries," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Matthias Brachert & Walter Hyll & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2020. "Entry into self-employment and individuals’ risk-taking propensities," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1057-1074, December.
    16. Boutin, Delphine & Petifour, Laurene & Megzari, Haris, 2023. "Permanent Instability of Preferences after COVID-19 Crisis: A Natural Experiment from Urban Burkina Faso," IZA Discussion Papers 16075, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Murray, Neil & Neyse, Levent & Schröder, Carsten, 2023. "Changes in risk attitudes vary across domains throughout the life course," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 534-563.
    18. Abdelaziz Alsharawy & Sheryl Ball & Alec Smith & Ross Spoon, 2021. "Fear of COVID-19 changes economic preferences: evidence from a repeated cross-sectional MTurk survey," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(2), pages 103-119, December.
    19. Bucciol, Alessandro & Hu, Alessio & Zarri, Luca, 2019. "The effects of prior outcomes on managerial risk taking: Evidence from Italian professional soccer," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).
    20. Freitas-Monteiro, Teresa & Ludolph, Lars, 2021. "Barriers to humanitarian migration, victimisation and integration outcomes: evidence from Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110500, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emotions; risk attitudes; patience; risk preferences; time preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1041. 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sodiwde.html .

    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.