Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Marital Satisfaction, Error-Observation, And The Brain: Harmful Or Beneficial Effects Of Spouse Observation?, Chelsea E. Romney, Michael Larson, Jonathan Sandberg, Patrick R. Steffen, Scott Baldwin

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

Introduction

Rewarding marital relationships are associated with many positive outcomes in one’s physical and mental health, including improved cardiovascular functioning, decreased depression risk, higher self-reported levels of happiness, and overall lower rates of mortality. The purpose of this study was to observe the differences in performance monitoring between males and females (while being observed by their spouses) using error-related brain activity (ERN). ERN is a response-locked, negative deflecting event-related potential (ERP) that occurs 50-100 milliseconds following an error. Heightened (i.e., more negative) ERN amplitude is associated with stressful or anxiety-provoking situations. Conversely, dampened ERN amplitude (i.e., less negative ERN) may …

The Effects Of Loss Aversion And Investment Type On The Sunk Cost Fallacy, Veronika Tait, Harold Miller Jr

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

The sunk-cost fallacy (SCF) occurs when an individual makes an investment with a low probability of a payoff because an earlier investment has already been made. It is considered an error because a rational decision maker should not factor in now-irretrievable investments, as they do not affect current-outcome likelihoods. Previous research has measured the tendency to commit the SCF by using hypothetical scenarios in which participants must choose to make a future investment or not after making an initial investment. Loss aversion, the preference for uncertain over certain losses, may be related to SCF. In this study, participants were asked …