A Research On The Impact Of Social Comparison On Risk Decision In Dynamic Decision Process

Risk decision is always the focus in psychology. It has a lot of research achievements. However, if you have an in-depth analysis of the content about the previous studies you will find that social comparison which is the most rich psychological theme has never been a hot spot for risk decision research. At present, there are a few studies on the risk decision under social comparison, with the risk scenario questionnaire as main research method. However, in reality, the decision is dynamic, and it is a loop between the information judgment-implement and the result feedback. So the conclusions of previous studies under the static model may not generalize to real decision situations. To this end, three experiments were designed to investigate the impact of social comparison on risk decision in dynamic decision process.The first experiment discussed the effect of prior outcome(loss, gain) on risk-preference in dynamic decision process through BART. On the basis of the first experiment, the second experiment added the manipulation of the social comparison(upward comparison, parallel comparison, downward comparison), and a 2 * 3 within subjects experiment was designed to discuss the effect of both prior outcomes and social comparison on dynamic risk decision. Experiment 3 added a personality trait called social comparison orientation on the basis of experiment 2. Subjects were divided into 3 groups( high, medium, low) according to their scores on the scale of the Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure(INCOM). The 2 * 3 * 3 mixed experiment was designed to examine whether the individual's social comparison orientation has a moderating effect on the risk decision in the dynamic decision process.The results showed that(1) the prior outcome can significantly affect risk decision, and subjects under the prior gain outcome got significantly lower Bart score than that under the prior loss outcome.(2)The social comparison type and the prior outcome had significant interactive effects on risk decision. The simple effect analysis showed that(1)when the prior outcome was gain, subjects' Bart scores under the parallel comparison and downward comparison were significantly higher than that under the upward comparison; when the prior outcome was loss, the Bart scores under three types of social comparison had no significant differences.(2) In the downward comparison, the Bart score was significantly higher in prior gain outcome than that in loss; but there was no significant difference in the upward and parallel comparison.(3)The main effect of social comparison orientation was significant, and the BART scores of the low level group were significantly higher than those of the high level group; The main effect of the social comparison type was significant, and the BART scores of the upward were significantly lower than that of the parallel; The main effect of the prior outcome was significant, and subjects under the prior gain outcome got significantly lower Bart score than that under the prior loss outcome; The social comparison type and the prior outcome had significant interactive effects on risk decision. The result of the simple effect analysis was consistent with the second experiment; There was no interaction between the social comparison orientation and the social comparison type, and also between the social comparison orientation and the prior outcome. And the interaction effect of each other did not come to be significant.The results showed that the prior decision outcome can affect risk decision stably in dynamic decision process; The social comparison type and the prior outcome worked together to affect the risk decision. The level of social comparison orientation had no effect on the risk decision under different social comparison types in dynamic decision process.