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Kacelnik and Bateson’s paper is one of an interesting series in American Zoologist (volume 36, pages 389–531) which reached the cautionary conclusion (page 530) that “most empirical tests of risk sensitivity are necessarily qualitative”.
This matches findings from qualitatively similar human studies such as Forlani (2002) and Laughhunn et al. (1980)
An important feature of risk attitudes discussed here is that they are a cross-species truth: both animals and humans are risk-sentient and assign probabilities in a non linear fashion. This extends to organisations after Singh (1986) used a diagram similar to Smallwood’s in his study of corporate returns. He argued that risk-taking only occurs when profits drop below a satisficing level: in the context of the diagram, the expected result is less than the required result.
I acknowledge the argument that the extensive catalogue of biases could arise from procedural shortcomings. Also interesting is the explanation by Kahneman (1991: 144) for why there might be “too many biases:... standard features of psychological methodology [are to study normal behaviour]... by inducing failure... [and the] objective of most psychological research is the rejection of a plausible or otherwise respectable null hypothesis.”
There is a rich literature containing surveys of attitudes towards risk. An example developed by Simons (1999) looks at company level risks. Zaleskiewicz (2001) provided scales that measure stimulating and instrumental risk taking, respectively, using questions such as the following: If I play a game (e.g. cards) I prefer to play for money; to achieve something in life, one has to take risks. A large number of other studies have provided questions on risk, including: Austin et al. (2001), Casssidy and Lynn (1989), Goldberg (1990), Griffm-Pierson (1990), Levenson (1974), Pennings (2002), Robinson and Shaver (1973) and Rohrmann (1997).
Kacelnik and Bateson (1996) similarly report that animals are universally risk embracing when variability is in delay: they are more willing to take a risk and accept variability in outcome than they are to accept variability in time and a possible delay to the outcome.
Conversely, Perlow et al. (2002) concluded that the influence of time pressure on the decisions of individuals and organisations is not clear or consistent.
Animals use similarly small samples: Caraco et al. (1990) found that birds choose after eight tests, whilst Real (1991) shows bees make 15 tests.
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(2006). Behavioural Evidence on Risk and Decision Making. In: Why Managers and Companies Take Risks. Contributions to Management Science. Physica-Verlag HD. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-7908-1696-5_3
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