TY - RPRT A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. A1 - Silva-Goncalves, Juliana A1 - Uhlendorff, Arne T1 - Locus of control and the preference for agency T2 - IZA discussion paper N2 - We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how locus of control operates through people's preferences and beliefs to influence their decisions. Using the principal-agent setting of the delegation game, we test four key channels that conceptually link locus of control to decision-making: (i) preference for agency; (ii) optimism and (iii) confidence regarding the return to effort; and (iv) illusion of control. Knowing the return and cost of stated effort, principals either retain or delegate the right to make an investment decision that generates payoffs for themselves and their agents. Extending the game to the context in which the return to stated effort is unknown allows us to explicitly study the relationship between locus of control and beliefs about the return to effort. We find that internal locus of control is linked to the preference for agency, an effect that is driven by women. We find no evidence that locus of control influences optimism and confidence about the return to stated effort, or that it operates through an illusion of control. KW - locus of control KW - preference for agency KW - decision-making KW - beliefs KW - optimism KW - confidence KW - illusion of control Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4416820 SN - 2365-9793 VL - No. 16061 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. A1 - Silva-Goncalves, Juliana A1 - Uhlendorff, Arne T1 - Locus of control and the preference for agency JF - European economic review N2 - We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how locus of control operates through people’s preferences and beliefs to influence their decisions. Using the principal–agent setting of the delegation game, we test four key channels that conceptually link locus of control to decision-making: (i) preference for agency, (ii) optimism and (iii) confidence regarding the return to effort, and (iv) illusion of control. Knowing the return and cost of stated effort, principals either retain or delegate the right to make an investment decision that generates payoffs for themselves and their agents. Extending the game to the context in which the return to stated effort is unknown allows us to explicitly study the relationship between locus of control and beliefs about the return to effort. We find that internal locus of control is linked to the preference for agency, an effect that is driven by women. We find no evidence that locus of control influences optimism and confidence about the return to stated effort, or that it operates through an illusion of control. KW - locus of control KW - preference for agency KW - decision-making KW - beliefs KW - optimism KW - confidence KW - illusion of control Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104737 SN - 0014-2921 SN - 1873-572X VL - 165 IS - 104737 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Giraudier, Manon A1 - Ventura-Bort, Carlos A1 - Weymar, Mathias T1 - Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) Improves High-Confidence Recognition Memory but Not Emotional Word Processing T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Previous clinical research found that invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) enhanced word recognition memory in epileptic patients, an effect assumed to be related to the activation of brainstem arousal systems. In this study, we applied non-invasive transcutaneous auricular VNS (tVNS) to replicate and extend the previous work. Using a single-blind, randomized, between-subject design, 60 healthy volunteers received active or sham stimulation during a lexical decision task, in which emotional and neutral stimuli were classified as words or non-words. In a subsequent recognition memory task (1 day after stimulation), participants' memory performance on these words and their subjective memory confidence were tested. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) levels, a putative indirect measure of central noradrenergic activation, were also measured before and after stimulation. During encoding, pleasant words were more accurately detected than neutral and unpleasant words. However, no tVNS effects were observed on task performance or on overall sAA level changes. tVNS also did not modulate overall recognition memory, which was particularly enhanced for pleasant emotional words. However, when hit rates were split based on confidence ratings reflecting familiarity- and recollection-based memory, higher recollection-based memory performance (irrespective of emotional category) was observed during active stimulation than during sham stimulation. To summarize, we replicated prior findings of enhanced processing and memory for emotional (pleasant) words. Whereas tVNS showed no effects on word processing, subtle effects on recollection-based memory performance emerged, which may indicate that tVNS facilitates hippocampus-mediated consolidation processes. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 649 KW - transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation KW - salivary alpha-amylase KW - emotion KW - words KW - episodic memory KW - recognition KW - recollection KW - confidence Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-474125 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 649 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Giraudier, Manon A1 - Ventura-Bort, Carlos A1 - Weymar, Mathias T1 - Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) Improves High-Confidence Recognition Memory but Not Emotional Word Processing JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Previous clinical research found that invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) enhanced word recognition memory in epileptic patients, an effect assumed to be related to the activation of brainstem arousal systems. In this study, we applied non-invasive transcutaneous auricular VNS (tVNS) to replicate and extend the previous work. Using a single-blind, randomized, between-subject design, 60 healthy volunteers received active or sham stimulation during a lexical decision task, in which emotional and neutral stimuli were classified as words or non-words. In a subsequent recognition memory task (1 day after stimulation), participants' memory performance on these words and their subjective memory confidence were tested. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) levels, a putative indirect measure of central noradrenergic activation, were also measured before and after stimulation. During encoding, pleasant words were more accurately detected than neutral and unpleasant words. However, no tVNS effects were observed on task performance or on overall sAA level changes. tVNS also did not modulate overall recognition memory, which was particularly enhanced for pleasant emotional words. However, when hit rates were split based on confidence ratings reflecting familiarity- and recollection-based memory, higher recollection-based memory performance (irrespective of emotional category) was observed during active stimulation than during sham stimulation. To summarize, we replicated prior findings of enhanced processing and memory for emotional (pleasant) words. Whereas tVNS showed no effects on word processing, subtle effects on recollection-based memory performance emerged, which may indicate that tVNS facilitates hippocampus-mediated consolidation processes. KW - transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation KW - salivary alpha-amylase KW - emotion KW - words KW - episodic memory KW - recognition KW - recollection KW - confidence Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01276 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER -