Positive fortune telling enhances men's financial risk taking.

PLoS One

Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands.

Published: September 2022

Fortune telling is a widespread phenomenon, yet little is known about the extent to which people are affected by it-including those who consider themselves non-believers. The present research has investigated the power of a positive fortune telling outcome (vs. neutral vs. negative) on people's financial risk taking. In two online experiments (n1 = 252; n2 = 441), we consistently found that positive fortune telling enhanced financial risk taking particularly among men. Additionally, we used a real online gambling game in a lab setting (n3 = 193) and found that positive fortune telling enhanced the likelihood that college students gambled for money. Furthermore, a meta-analysis of these three studies demonstrated that the effect of positive fortune telling versus neutral fortune telling was significant for men, but virtually absent for women. Thus, positive fortune telling can yield increased financial risk taking in men, but not (or less so) in women.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9451074PMC
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0273233PLOS

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

fortune telling
32
positive fortune
24
financial risk
16
telling
8
telling enhanced
8
risk men
8
fortune
7
positive
6
telling enhances
4
enhances men's
4

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!