Effect of trait anxiety and gender difference on risk-avoidant in decision-making in 316 college students / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective: To explore the relationship of trait anxiety, gender difference and risk averse. Methods: A test was conducted fwstly in 328 college students with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The participants with a score≥53 were termed as high trait-anxiety group (N=30), in contrast to the former, the par-ticipants with a score ≤ 30 were treated as the low trait-anxiety (N=30) . The material was 10 hypothesized risk settings, asking the participants to do decision-making, at the same time, the participants were also required to ac-cess their subjective cost if the result of their decision was negative; recording the scores and the reaction time of the participants. Results: The risk-avoidant score in high trait-anxiety group was significantly higher than that in low trait-anxiety group [(5.97±1.53) vs.(3.27±1.25), P <0.01], and the risk-avoidant score in males was sig-nificantly higher than that in females [(2.78±1.37) vs.(6.46±1.26), P <0.01] .There also had significant interaction effects between the 2 variables (F=7.43, P <0.01). The reaction time in males was also longer than that in females [high-trait anxiety (1586.47±10.352)vs.(1067.52±18.468); low-trait anxiety (643.46±36.759)vs.(498.36±9.673); P < 0.01] . The correlation between subjective loss and trait-anxiety in females was higher than that in males (Z=2.15, P<0.05) . Conclusion: There is significant effect of trait-anxiety and gender difference on risk-avoidant decision-making. The high-trait and female individuals have more risk-avoidant in decision-making.