Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Affective bias in complex decision making: Modulating sensitivity to aversive feedback

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Motivation and Emotion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The present study investigated the conflict between well-developed attitudes and incentive rewards using the Iowa Gambling Task. In particular, the incorporation of emotional labels allowed us to model the role of affective biases and their impact on complex decision making over time. Two experiments manipulated the class of deck label (emotional pictures and racial faces) using both congruent and incongruent association to the deck incentives. Both experiments demonstrated that an incongruent association can lead to striking and persistent decision making biases. Thus, a common theme was a general inability to tolerate conflict between rewards and goal-irrelevant labels. Notably, Experiment 2 demonstrated that this ‘incongruency’ effect appeared to result from positive labels interfering with aversive experiences from bad decks. More generally, sensitivity to accumulating losses from punishing decks was primarily associated with successful performance on these Gambling Task variants. These results suggest emotional biases are readily harmful in complex decision making, and that flexibility in the extent to which we permit emotional influences to guide our decisions is crucial.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Although this is challenged in some quarters (Maia and McClelland 2004), it is likely that the task can be considered opaque in that participants do not have a robust understanding of task contingency early in the task, but can express the affective characteristics of the task objects (e.g., Bowman et al. 2005; Wager and Dixon 2007).

  2. An additional analysis which collapsed blocks 2 and 3 showed that congruent performance was impaired during the reversal phase compared to the control condition (t (30) = 1.82, p (one-tailed) = .039, d = 0.32).

  3. Development of the MacBrain Face Stimulus Set was overseen by Nim Tottenham and supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development. Please contact Nim Tottenham at tott0006@tc.umn.edu for more information concerning the stimulus set.

  4. Further unpublished data (Davies 2008) demonstrated that manipulating facial trustworthiness (and attractiveness) did not alter behavioural performance on the Iowa Gambling Task and, moreover, a previous race-based pilot study found similar decision making biases even when there were no significant differences in trustworthiness ratings between selected Black and White faces.

  5. A small scale pilot study was undertaken to determine popular and familiar Black names in the UK. Although names of the Black population may be less familiar than names of the White UK population, studies do show that the IAT is robust to such minor stimuli effects when the stimuli are good exemplars of the target category (Dasgupta et al. 2000; Greenwald and Nosek 2001; Ottaway et al. 2001).

  6. The original version of the Modern Racism Scale (McConahay 1986) uses seven items, however, item 2—“Blacks have more influence upon school desegregation plans than they ought to have”—was considered irrelevant to racial issues in the UK and Europe, and was therefore removed. The inclusion of Item 1 led to poor overall reliability (α = .36) and was therefore also removed from analysis.

  7. As four participants failed to fully complete the opinion questionnaire, missing data was substituted with the overall mean value for each of the relevant items.

  8. Collapsing performance in blocks 2 and 3 and comparing the race-based congruent to the control from Experiment 1 again showed that performance during the ‘reversal’ phase was impaired in the presence of affective bias (t (42) = 2.05, p = .046, d = 0.30).

References

  • Anderson, S. W., Bechara, W., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. R. (1996). Characterisation of the decision making deficit of subjects with ventromedial frontal lobe damage. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 22, 711.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumeister, R., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bechara, A., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. R. (2000). Emotion, decision making, and the orbitofrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 10, 295–307.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bechara, A., Damasio, A. R., Damasio, H., & Anderson, S. W. (1994). Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition, 50, 7–12.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Anderson, S. W. (1998). Dissociation of working memory from decision making within the human prefrontal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 428–437.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293–1295.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Beer, J. S., Knight, R. T., & D’Esposito, M. (2006). Controlling the integration of emotion and cognition: The role of frontal cortex in distinguishing helpful from hurtful emotional information. Psychological Science, 17, 448–453.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bowman, C. H., Evans, C. E. Y., & Turnbull, O. H. (2005). Artificial time-constraints on the Iowa Gambling Task: The effects on behavioural performance and subjective experience. Brain and Cognition, 57, 21–25.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bowman, C. H., & Turnbull, O. H. (2003). Real versus Facsimile reinforcers on the Iowa Gambling task. Brain and Cognition, 53, 207–210.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cacioppo, J. T., & Berntson, G. G. (1994). Relationship between attitudes and evaluative space: A critical review, with emphasis on the separability of positive and negative substrates. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 401–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, J. M., & Russell, J. A. (1996). Do facial expressions signal specific emotions? Judging emotion from the face in context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 205–218.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cella, M., Dymond, S., Cooper, A., & Turnbull, O. H. (2007). Effects of decision-phase time constraints on emotion-based learning in the Iowa Gambling Task. Brain and Cognition, 64, 164–169.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Center for the Study of Emotion, Attention [CSEA-NIMH]. (2001). The international affective picture system: Digitised photographs. Gainesville, FL: The Center for Research in Psychophysiology, University of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christakou, A., Brammer, M., Giampietro, V., & Rubia, K. (2009). Right ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices mediate adaptive decisions under ambiguity by integrating choice utility and outcome evaluation. Journal of Neuroscience, 29, 11020–11028.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., Wittenbrink, B., Sadler, M. S., & Keesee, T. (2007). Across the thin blue line: Police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 1006–1023.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Crone, E. A., Somsen, R. J., Van Beek, B., & Van Der Molen, M. W. (2004). Heart rate and skin conductance analysis of antecedents and consequences of decision making. Psychophysiology, 41, 531–540.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, W. A., Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Gatenby, J. C., Gore, J. C., & Banaji, M. R. (2004). Separable neural components in the processing of black and white faces. Psychological Science, 15, 806–813.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dalgleish, T., Yiend, J., Bramham, J., Teasdale, J., Ogilvie, A., Malhi, G., et al. (2004). Neuropsychological processing associated with recovery from depression following stereotactic subcaudate tractotomy (SST). American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 1913–1916.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Avon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dasgupta, N., McGhee, D. E., Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (2000). Automatic preference for White Americans: Eliminating the familiarity explanation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 316–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davies, J. L. (2008). Emotion and prejudice in complex decision making. Unpublished PhD thesis. Bangor University, UK.

  • Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated scepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 568–584.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, B. L. (1976). Differential social perception and attribution of intergroup violence: Testing the lower limits of stereotyping of Blacks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 590–598.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, B. D., Dalgleish, T., & Lawrence, A. D. (2006). The somatic marker hypothesis: A critical evaluation. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 30, 239–271.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dymond, S., Cella, M., Cooper, A., & Turnbull, O. H. (2010). The contingency-shifting variant Iowa gambling task: An investigation with young adults. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 32, 239–248.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fellows, L. K., & Farah, M. J. (2005). Different underlying impairments in decision-making following ventromedial and dorsolateral frontal lobe damage in humans. Cerebral Cortex, 15, 58–63.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Finucane, M. L., Peters, E., & Slovic, P. (2003). Judgement and decision making: The dance of affect and reason. In S. L. Schnieder & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgement and decision research (pp. 327–364). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gehring, W. J., & Willoughby, A. R. (2002). The medial frontal cortex and the rapid processing of monetary gains and losses. Science, 295, 2279–2282.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, J. L., & Schwarz, J. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in social cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greenwald, A. G., & Nosek, B. A. (2001). Health of the Implicit Association Test at age 3. Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie, 48, 85–93.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2003). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 197–216.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Henry, P. J., & Sears, D. O. (2002). The symbolic racism 2000 scale. Political Psychology, 23, 253–283.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinson, J. M., Jameson, T. L., & Whitney, P. (2002). Somatic markers, working memory, and decision making. Cognitive Behavioural and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 341–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinson, J. M., Whitney, P., Holben, H., & Wirick, A. K. (2006). Affective biasing of choices in gambling task decision making. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 6, 190–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hugenburg, K., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2004). Ambiguity in social categorisation: The role of prejudice and facial affect in race categorisation. Psychological Science, 15, 342–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iversen, S. D., & Mishkin, M. (1970). Perseverative interference in monkey following selective lesions of the inferior prefrontal convexity. Experimental Brain Research, 11, 376–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J., & Thaler, R. (1990). Experimental test of the endowment effect and the Coase theorem. Journal of Political Economy, 98, 1325–1348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kermer, D. A., Driver-Linn, E., Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2006). Loss aversion is an affective forecasting error. Psychological Science, 17, 649–653.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kringelbach, M. L., & Rolls, E. T. (2003). Neural correlates of rapid context-dependent reversal learning in a simple model of human social interaction. Neuroimage, 20, 1371–1383.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (2001). International Affective Picture System (IAPS): Instruction Manual and affective ratings. Technical Report A-5. Gainesville, FL: The Center for Research in Psychophysiology, University of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lin, C. H., Chiu, Y. C., Lee, P. L., & Hsieh, J. C. (2007). Is deck B a disadvantageous deck the Iowa Gambling Task? Behavioral Brain Functions, 3, 16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maia, T. V., & McClelland, J. L. (2004). A reexamination of the evidence for the somatic marker hypothesis: What participants really know in the Iowa gambling task. Proceedings of the National Academy for Science USA, 101, 16075–16080.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McConahay, J. B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the Modern racism Scale. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination, and racism (pp. 91–126). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKimmie, B., & Chalmers, K. (2002). A-face: Academic facial attributes catalogue for experiments. Available for download from http://www.psy.uq.edu.au/a-face.

  • Ottaway, S. A., Hayden, D. C., & Oakes, M. A. (2001). Implicit attitudes and racism: Effects of word familiarity and frequency on the implicit association test. Social Cognition, 19, 97–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plant, E. A., & Devine, P. G. (1998). Internal and external motivation to respond without prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 811–832.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quirk, G. J., & Beer, J. S. (2006). Prefrontal involvement in the regulation of emotion: Convergence of rat and human studies. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16, 723–727.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Raghunathan, R., & Pham, M. T. (1999). All negative moods are not equal: Motivational influences of anxiety and sadness on decision making. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 79, 56–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saver, J. L., & Damasio, A. R. (1991). Preserved access and processing of social knowledge in a patient with acquired sociopathy due to ventromedial frontal damage. Neuropsychologia, 29, 1241–1249.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt, W. A., Brinkley, C. A., & Newmann, J. P. (1999). Testing Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis with psychopathic individuals: Risk takers or risk averse? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 3, 538–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution and judgements of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513–523.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Speilberger, C. D. (1983). Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stocco, A., & Fum, D. (2008). Implicit emotional biases in decision making: The case of the Gambling Task. Brain and Cognition, 66, 253–259.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stocco, A., Fum, D., & Napoli, A. (2009). Dissociable processes underlying decisions in the Iowa Gambling Task: A new integrative framework. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 5, 1.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Toda, M. (1980). Emotion in decision making. Acta Psychologica, 45, 133–155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomb, I., Hauser, M., Deldin, P., & Caramazza, A. (2002). Do somatic markers mediate decisions on the gambling task? Nature Neuroscience, 5, 1103–1104.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tottenham, N., Borscheid, A., Ellertsen, K., Marcus, D. J., Nelson, C. A. (2002). Categorization of facial expressions in children and adults: Establishing a larger stimulus set. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society annual meeting, San Francisco. [stimuli available at http://www.macbrain.org].

  • Wager, B. M., & Dixon, M. (2007). Affective guidance in the Iowa Gambling Task. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioural Neuroscience, 6, 277–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35, 151–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, LL57 2AS, Wales, UK

    Julie L. Davies & Oliver H. Turnbull

Authors
  1. Julie L. Davies
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Oliver H. Turnbull
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julie L. Davies.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Davies, J.L., Turnbull, O.H. Affective bias in complex decision making: Modulating sensitivity to aversive feedback. Motiv Emot 35, 235–248 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9217-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9217-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation