The Relationship Between Anxiety and Decision Preference in the Ratio Bias Paradigm
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12974/2313-1047.2025.12.05Keywords:
Anxiety, Decision preference, Ego depletion, Self-controlAbstract
In the ratio bias paradigm, people make different choices depending on whether information is presented in terms of probability or absolute value. The current research intended to investigate the relationship between anxiety and decision preference in the ratio bias paradigm. In Studies 1 and 2, we analyzed the mediating role of ego depletion in the relationship between anxiety and decision preference, using a relevant-event recall task to manipulate anxiety and a ratio bias paradigm to measure decision preference. The results showed that anxiety promotes ego depletion, thus increasing decision preference based on absolute value. In Study 3, we further examined the moderating role of self-control in the mediation model, with a movie clip used to manipulate anxiety and a decision-making task used to measure decision preference. The results showed that ego depletion was significantly associated with decision preference based on absolute value only when self-control was low.
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