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Is loss-aversion magnitude-dependent? Measuring prospective affective judgments regarding gains and losses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Sumitava Mukherjee*
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.
Arvind Sahay
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.
V. S. Chandrasekhar Pammi
Affiliation:
Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad, India.
Narayanan Srinivasan
Affiliation:
Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad, India.
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Abstract

Prospect Theory proposed that the (dis)utility of losses is always more than gains due to a phenomena called ‘loss-aversion’, a result obtained in multiple later studies over the years. However, some researchers found reversed or no loss-aversion for affective judgments of small monetary amounts but, those findings have been argued to stem from the way gains versus losses were measured. Thus, it was not clear whether loss-aversion does not show with affective judgments for smaller magnitudes, or it is a measurement error. This paper addresses the debate concerning loss-aversion (in the prospect theoretic sense) and judgments about the intensity of gains and losses. We measured affective prospective judgments for monetary amounts using measurement scales that have been argued to be suitable for measuring loss-aversion and hence rule out any explanations regarding measurement. Both in a gambling scenario (Experiments 1 and 2) and in the context of fluctuating prices (Experiments 3a and 3b), potential losses never loomed larger than gains for low magnitudes, indicating that it is not simply a measurement error. Moreover, for the same participant, loss aversion was observable at high magnitudes. Further, we show that loss-aversion disappears even for higher monetary values, if contextually an even larger anchor is provided. The results imply that Prospect Theory’s value function is contextually dependent on magnitudes.

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Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
The authors license this article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors [2017] This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Figure 0

Figure 1: Intensity of gains and losses for different amounts.

Figure 1

Figure 2: Percentage of participants ratings gain>loss, gain=loss and loss>gain in Experiment 1.

Figure 2

Figure 3: Percentage of participants ratings gain>loss, gain=loss and loss>gain in Experiment 2.

Figure 3

Figure 4: Percentage of participants ratings gain>loss, gain=loss and loss>gain in Experiment 3a.

Figure 4

Figure 5: Proportion of participants choosing each of the 5 options in Experiment 3b.

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