Human wagering behavior depends on opponents' faces.

ABSTRACT: Research in competitive games has exclusively focused on how opponent models are developed through previous outcomes and how peoples' decisions relate to normative predictions. Little is known about how rapid impressions of opponents operate and influence behavior in competitive economic situations, although such subjective impressions have been shown to influence cooperative decision-making. This study investigates whether an opponent's face influences players' wagering decisions in a zero-sum game with hidden information. Participants made risky choices in a simplified poker task while being presented opponents whose faces differentially correlated with subjective impressions of trust. Surprisingly, we find that threatening face information has little influence on wagering behavior, but

SUBMITTER: Schlicht EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2908123 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature