Thirst-dependent risk preferences in monkeys identify a primitive form of wealth.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
; 110(39): 15788-93, 2013 Sep 24.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24019461
ABSTRACT
Experimental economic techniques have been widely used to evaluate human risk attitudes, but how these measured attitudes relate to overall individual wealth levels is unclear. Previous noneconomic work has addressed this uncertainty in animals by asking the following (i) Do our close evolutionary relatives share both our risk attitudes and our degree of economic rationality? And (ii) how does the amount of food or water one holds (a nonpecuniary form of "wealth") alter risk attitudes in these choosers? Unfortunately, existing noneconomic studies have provided conflicting insights from an economic point of view. We therefore used standard techniques from human experimental economics to measure monkey risk attitudes for water rewards as a function of blood osmolality (an objective measure of how much water the subjects possess). Early in training, monkeys behaved randomly, consistently violating first-order stochastic dominance and monotonicity. After training, they behaved like human choosers--technically consistent in their choices and weakly risk averse (i.e., risk averse or risk neutral on average)--suggesting that well-trained monkeys can serve as a model for human choice behavior. As with attitudes about money in humans, these risk attitudes were strongly wealth dependent; as the animals became "poorer," risk aversion increased, a finding incompatible with some models of wealth and risk in human decision making.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Contexto em Saúde:
1_ASSA2030
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Assunção de Riscos
/
Sede
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Comportamento de Escolha
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Modelos Econômicos
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Macaca mulatta
Tipo de estudo:
Etiology_studies
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Health_economic_evaluation
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Prognostic_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Aspecto:
Patient_preference
Limite:
Animals
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Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Ano de publicação:
2013
Tipo de documento:
Article