finished
Future is Uncertain
principal investigator / project leader
Ph.D. / Associate Professor
psychologist interested in the relation between psychology and economy
Full bio project value: PLN 330,680
funding source: National Science Center
discipline: psychology
location: Warsaw
duration: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Imagine a world where everything you have planned, would happen for certain. Moreover, if all the future events were positive, it would be a perfect world. Unfortunately in real life, things do not always work out this way. The path leading to one’s goals is full of uncertainty, because future itself is uncertain. A research team, under the leadership of Associate Professor Wojciech Białaszek, Ph.D. will investigate how people make decisions, when they cannot foresee the consequences, i.e. when the choices carry delayed and risky gains and losses also called “delayed lotteries”.
RESEARCH PROJECT
FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN
Explicit and Implicit Risk in Intertemporal Decision Making
Research Unit
Grant Amount 330 680 PLN
Funding Source
Duration of Research Project: September 2016 – August 2019
Imagine a world where everything you have planned, would happen for certain. Moreover, if all the future events were positive, it would be a perfect world. Unfortunately in real life, things do not always work out this way. The path leading to one’s goals is full of uncertainty, because future itself is uncertain. A research team, under the leadership of Assistant Professor Wojciech Białaszek, Ph.D. will investigate how people make decisions, when they cannot foresee the consequences, i.e. when the choices carry delayed and risky gains and losses also called “delayed lotteries”.
Project Objectives
Assumptions and Methodology
The researchers will investigate the process of decision making, when the choice may result in positive or negative consequences that, at the same time, are delayed and uncertain.
“In our research, we combine the theoretical background and methodology form the disciplines of economy and psychology to investigate how people think about the uncertain future. We go one step further than the existing research that so far has focused either on choices with delayed consequences or choices with uncertain consequences”, says Wojciech Białaszek.
In order to do that, the researchers will observe how participants choose between different options of gaining or losing hypothetical sums of money, when the options carry various degrees of delay and probability. This will allow the team to develop a mathematical model showing how time and uncertainty impact decision making.
The future is uncertain. Almost all consequences of our decisions are delayed and are bound to happen with a specified or unspecified amount of risk. However, the majority of previous studies on the decision making process had focused either on its intertemporal (time-related) aspect or on the risk factor. Our project will analyze the processes of decision making in the situations, when delay and risk are combined.
Białaszek, Wojciech
Principal Investigator
Specialization
Psychologist interested in the relation between psychology and economy
First and last name
Wojciech Białaszek
Academic degree or title
Ph.D. / Associate Professor
Email
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Position
profesor uczelni
Role in the Faculty
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Role in the Department
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Role in the Institute
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Role in the Research Center
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Ph.D. / Associate Professor Wojciech Białaszekpsychologist interested in the relation between psychology and economy
Practical Application of Results
The aim of the project is to better understand the decision making process, especially in the situations of delayed lotteries. It is important to gain a better understanding of this process, because maladaptive intertemporal and risky choices contribute to many societal problems, such as addiction, obesity, gambling, and even negative impact on the environment.
Research Team