People who are more inclined to take risks

Russian and foreign researchers tracked the tendency of residents of 11 countries to take risks when making quick independent decisions.

Scientists found that the lowest level of adventurism was characteristic of the inhabitants of India and Chile, while the Chinese and Japanese were more often willing to take risks.

This was reported on Tuesday, June 18 by the press service of the Higher School of Economics of the Russian National Research University.

More than 500 people from Russia, France, Argentina, India, China and other countries undertook a special two-part study. Participants first chose between two options, each of which was associated with obtaining a reward or a risk. A report published by the press service says: “The options were repeated in each round, and different groups were grouped together to create a context for viewing these options as more profitable or less profitable.”

In this way, a group of Russian and foreign psychologists and neuroscientists led by Stefano Palminteri, professor at the Laboratory of Cognitive and Computational Neurosciences in Paris, tried to understand how different social, cultural and life factors influence decision-making and risk assessment. Scholars were interested in how the rationality of an individual's actions depended on his country of origin, his position in society, religion, political system and other factors.

In order to obtain such information, the researchers asked volunteers to participate in a lottery in which they had to choose one of two abstract geometric shapes on a computer screen. Each of these formats was associated with the chance of winning a certain amount of money with a fixed chance that volunteers could gradually determine through trial and error. After completing the training, the scientists exchanged pairs of shapes, sometimes providing context and clearly stating some of the lottery rules.

Subsequent observations of the volunteers' behavior showed that they were all guided by similar considerations when they decided to take risks, which was evident in the fact that representatives of all peoples and countries often made mistakes in certain contexts and with incomplete information. At the same time, scientists found that the propensity to take risks among representatives of different nationalities varies greatly.

In particular, Russians, Argentinians and Moroccans were characterized by a moderate degree of risk appetite, while residents of India, Chile and the USA were not prone to adventurous decisions. In contrast, volunteers from China, Japan, and Israel took the most risks, especially in situations with a high level of reward and risk. Scientists stressed the need to take these distinctive characteristics into account when conducting opinion polls and advertising campaigns.