The Effect Of Loss Value On Risk Decision Making:The Mediating Role Of State Anxiety And The Moderating Role Of Mental Resilience

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019,the world has gradually entered an era of instability.At present,the academic community still lacks sufficient attention to the characteristics of people’s risk decision making under the situation of loss.This is not conducive to individuals to make effective responses in the era of uncertainty,but also brings negative effects on the formulation of a series of policies in human society.The effect of profit and loss value size believes that in risk decision-making,the profit and loss probability of decision-making task remains unchanged,and only changing the profit and loss value size will lead to the difference of people’s risk propensity.However,the academic community has not reached a unanimous conclusion on how the change of loss value will lead to the reversal of decision makers’ risk preference.In addition,according to the risk-as-emotion model,the immediate emotions generated in the decision-making process will have a significant impact on the risk decision-making behavior.Based on this,this study adopts the modified De Martino risk decisionmaking task for college students,aiming to explore whether the change of loss value in the loss situation affects the difference of individual decision preferences,and further investigate the role of state anxiety and psychological resilience in this psychological mechanism.This paper includes one preliminary experiment and three formal experiments.In the preliminary experiment,the subjects rated their relative magnitude for the specific losses to be used in the subsequent formal experiment.The results showed that the subjects’ perception of the loss amount at levels ten,one hundred and one million was significantly higher than that at levels ten,one hundred and one thousand,indicating that the setting of the loss amount in this experiment could significantly activate the loss value perceived by the subjects,and levels ten,one hundred and one thousand were small loss value categories,while ten,one hundred and one million were large loss value categories.Therefore,the material can be further used for subsequent formal experiments.In experiment 1,the single-factor experimental design was adopted to explore whether the risk preference of the subjects would change in the face of loss values ranging from 10 to millions in the risk decision-making task.The results showed that the loss value had a significant impact on risk decision-making after controlling the family economic and social status,age and gender of the subjects.Specifically,in the loss scenario,the risk rate of the subjects under the small loss value was significantly lower than that under the large loss value.In other words,with the increase of the loss value,the risk preference of the subjects gradually changed from risk avoidance to risk seeking.On the basis of experiment 1,experiment 2 further investigated the potential psychological mechanism of loss value affecting risk decision-making,that is,whether state anxiety plays an intermediary role in the relationship between loss value and risk decision-making.After controlling the trait anxiety,family economic and social status,age and gender of the subjects,it was found that the mediating effect was significant,that is,the loss value could significantly positively predict the state anxiety of the subjects,while the state anxiety could significantly positively predict the risk rate under the loss value.The results showed that the greater the loss value faced by the subjects in the loss situation,the higher the state anxiety value generated,so as to choose more risk options in the decision,which is represented by risk seeking.Experiment 3 aims to explore whether resilience plays a moderating role in the mediating model of state anxiety.It was found that the mental resilience of the subjects moderated the first half of the path by which loss value affected risk appetite through state anxiety.Specifically,with the increase of loss value under both high and low mental resilience conditions,the level of state anxiety of the subjects increased significantly;however,under the condition of low mental resilience,the degree of increase was higher,thus leading to the difference in risk preference.In summary,from the behavioral level,this study discusses the change of risk preference when people face different loss values in the loss situation,and examines the potential psychological mechanism between them: Loss value can not only directly affect the decision-making preference of individuals,but also indirectly affect the decision-making preference through the state anxiety of individuals.Moreover,individuals with different mental resilience have different levels of state anxiety when facing the loss value of large or small,thus leading to different decision-making preferences.This study has further enriched the empirical research data on the size effect of profit and loss value,verified the theoretical view of risk-emotion model,and has far-reaching enlightening significance for how individuals and society should maintain more rational decision-making under the loss situation in real life.