Influence Of Emotion On Subjective Probability In Environmental Risk Intertemporal Decision Making

Environment is the basis of the existence of human being. the increasingly severeenvironmental problems have threatened the development of human society. People’senvironmental cognitions affect their environmental actions. Hence, in order to slowdown the worsening of environmental problems, an in-depth study of the process ofcommon public making environmental cognition is needed. Typical environmental risksare a continuous changing. Existing literature on intertemporal environmentaldecision-making has solely relied on the discounting process, which fails to thoroughlyaccounts for the role of time delay. Meanwhile, environmental cognition is subject tothe influence of subject emotional state. Current research has not closely examined theinfluence of emotion on time delay effect in environmental decision-making.This research explores how emotion and time delay affect environmentdecision-making in the context of specific environmental risks. A series of risk scenarioswhich show the basic attributes of environmental risks are designed. They differentiatefrom each other in probability and severity, and are set in different time delay conditions.Film clips are used to elicit certain emotional states. There are three groups in theexperiment, the benchmark group, the fear group, and the anger group, representingdifferent emotions. Then, equivalent certain loss，which directly shows risk preference，is derived via bisection method according to subjects’ choices in the experiment.Inspired by cumulative prospect theory, this research applies nonlinear least squaresmethod to disentangle environmental decision making into utility and subjectiveprobability. This holds the potential of explaining the source of changes in riskpreference under different time conditions, whether it is the probability or the severityof the risk. Subjective probability which is the subjects’ subjective judgment of theprobability of environmental risk shows individual risk preference in probability; whiles,changes in utility can show time delay effect on severity judgment. First, time delaymakes subjects risk seeking in the face of environmental risks. Time delay does notsignificantly affect utility function parameters. Time delay effect on environmental riskperception and decision making lies mainly in subjective probability. In addition, theeffect of emotion on environmental risk decision making is manifested in subjectiveprobability and utility. Subjects are more risk avoiding under anger and fear.This research furthers our understanding of how time delay and emotion affectsenvironmental risk cognition. Results explain why people are excessively toleranttowards delayed environmental risks, and the instability of preferences. This researchclearly shows the irrational nature of environmental decision making. Related findingsprovide some reference for government work in environmental management.Government can better understand the characteristics of public environmental decision making and the influence of emotional state, and thus design proper communication andmanagement policies.