Not Women, men take more financial risks after positive fortune-telling!
Jan 02, 2023
Rotterdam [Amsterdam], January 2 : In three recent research, men who were given a favourable fortune-telling outcome as opposed to a neutral or unfavourable one were thereafter more likely to take financial risks; this association was much less strong for women. Xiaoyue Tan of Erasmus University Rotterdam presents these findings in the Netherlands and colleagues in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Superstitious beliefs and behaviours are prevalent around the world. A limited but growing body of research is improving the scientific understanding of superstition. For instance, evidence suggests that superstition can help combat feelings of uncertainty and that superstitious rituals can boost people's performance on tasks by enhancing their confidence. Fortune telling is a popular form of superstition, but few studies have investigated how it affects people's behaviours.
To better understand the relationship between fortune-telling and subsequent behaviours, Tan and colleagues conducted two online experiments involving 693 participants who were presented with either positive, negative, or neutral fortunes regarding their lives and future financial success. Participants later completed a questionnaire evaluating their tendency to take financial risks. These experiments showed that participants with positive fortunes were more inclined to take financial risks--particularly male participants. Next, in an experiment involving 193 new participants in a lab setting, receiving a positive fortune was linked to a greater tendency to gamble with real money in an online gambling game. However, here no significant difference emerged between men and women.
The researchers finally conducted a statistical "meta-analysis" of all three experiments, revealing a significant overall link among men between financial risk-taking and a positive versus a neutral fortune. However, this link was nearly absent for women.
Most participants in all three experiments reported themselves to be non-believers, even though the results suggest that positive fortune-telling outcomes influenced their behaviours. This is in line with prior research indicating that people act on superstition even if they claim not to be superstitious. Future research could explore the nuances of these findings, such as factors underlying the more pronounced effects for men.
The authors add: "Positive fortune telling can yield increased financial risk-taking in men, but not (or less so) in women."
