Effects of Regulatory Focus and Accountability on Loss Aversion in Decision Making for Self and Others
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Abstract
This research aimed to study the effect of regulatory focus and accountability on loss aversion in decision making for self and others. This experimental study was a 2 x 2 x 3 between subjects factorial design. Participants were 258 undergraduate students at Chulalongkorn University (68.2% female), aged 18 to 24 years old (M = 19.22, SD = 1.23). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the 12 experimental conditions. Specifically, they were induced to be in either a prevention or promotion focus state of mind. Participants then decide how much money, out of 1,000 Baht, they would spend to maintain their own status quo in 7 ways of life, or to closed others, or a distant others. Participants in the accountability condition were told that they had to provide justification to the researcher, while those in the non-accountability condition did not have to.
Research results are follows: from three-way ANOVA revealed a non-significant three-way interaction. The amount of money participants would pay to maintain status quo was determined by the main effect of regulatory focus and decision recipients and by the regulatory focus x accountability interaction and regulatory focus x decision recipients interaction. Participants in the prevention-focus condition generally make a more loss-averse decision—pay more to maintain status quo—than those in the promotion focus condition.
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Academic articles, research articles, and book reviews in the Ph.D. in Social Sciences Journal are author’s opinions, and not the publisher’s, and is not the responsibility of the Ph.D. in Social Sciences Journal Philosophy Association, Ramkhamhaeng University. (In the case that research is done on human, the researcher has to be trained in Ethics for Doing Research on Human Training and has to produce the evidence of the training).
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