Sex, $$$ Linked
No way. Sex induces financial risk-taking behavior in men? Get out.
Car salesmen and casino owners have known it for years, but now there’s new research to confirm it: sex does indeed sell.
That’s because men really do lose their cool when they see a hot woman.
New research from Stanford University has shown that in the immediate aftermath of viewing “positive emotional stimuli,” which, in this case, were erotic photos of a man and woman, heterosexual men are more likely to take bigger financial risks.
“This is the first study to demonstrate that emotional stimuli can influence financial risk-taking,” said Brian Knutson, assistant professor of psychology at Stanford and lead author of the the research paper, in a media release.
“The interesting finding from an economic standpoint is that these completely irrelevant stimuli, these pictures that have nothing to do with the gambles or the history of outcomes that people have experienced with these gambles, still influence behaviour.”
No kidding. The part I didn’t know about is that it all happens in the nucleus accumbens. I didn’t even know I had one.
Using magnetic resonance imaging to track activity, he found that an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens showed more activation when someone was about to take a risk, while an area called the insula showed more activation when they were about to avoid the risk.
“But what we didn’t know is whether we could somehow control the activation in that area by presenting some completely irrelevant stimulus,” said Knutson.
Erotic images are completely irrelevant when?
Based on his new study, the answer is yes, at least when positive stimuli was used.
Knutson said that after viewing the erotic pictures, the students tended to pick the high-risk gamble more often, especially if they’d been choosing the low-risk gamble before.
He also said that the change in behaviour can “at least partially” be attributed to the activation of the various brain regions and that these findings could have implications in how people make emotional appeals in everything from advertising to finance and politics.
As for whether using erotic pictures to sell cars works, Knutson said the strategy can work if men are faced with a quick decision — which would mimic the situation he and his colleagues created with their study.
“If you have these kinds of appeals, you’d better make it easy for people to make an immediate decision,” he said. “You should put them under time pressure.”
Win big. Quick. Hit PayPal button at left.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:44 pm on Friday, April 4, 2008
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