ABSTRACT
It is long believed that people's preferences are relatively stable over time. However, this study utilized a survey to directly elicit people's preference after experiencing COVID-19 pandemic. The study finds that those who have been heavily impacted by the pandemic, such as experiencing negative monetary effects, become more risk-averse when facing an uncertain gain while also become more risk-loving when encountering an uncertain loss. A model was used to demonstrate that this finding is inconsistent with the classic utility function with single risk parameter. However, it is consistent with the behavioral model of risk-aversion across gain and loss domains. Furthermore, other findings indicate that people becoming less loss-averse over the months of the pandemic yet the data also shows the participants becoming less willing to take financial and health risks. It was found that several demographic variables closely relate to people's risk-preference and loss-aversion. This finding offers new implications and future research possibilities as it points out people's preference might not be as stable as usually assumed in classical models. © 2021 ACM.