Risk and loss aversion and attitude to COVID and vaccines in anxious individuals

Anxious individuals are known to show impaired decision-making in economic gambling task and in everyday life decisions. This impairment can be due to aversion to uncertainty about outcomes (risk aversion) and/or aversion to negative outcomes (loss aversion). We investigate how non-clinical individuals with high levels of Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) (N = 54) behave compared to less anxious subjects (N = 61) in a gambling decision-making task delivered online and designed to separate the distinct influences of risk and loss aversion on decision-making. By modelling subjects choices using computational models derived from Prospect Theory and fitted using Hierarchical Bayesian methods, we estimate individual levels of risk and loss aversion. Moreover we analyse the reaction times and choice data using Hierarchical Drift Diffusion Models (HDDMs). We also link estimates of these parameters to individual propensity to risk averse behaviours during the COVID pandemic, like wearing safer types of face masks, or completing a COVID vaccination course. We report increased loss aversion in individuals with increased level of GAD compared to less anxious individuals and no differences in risk aversion. The HDDM analysis suggests that high anxiety subjects have a reduced bias towards gambling in trials where there is a risk to loose points, also consistent with them being loss averse. We also report no links between risk and loss aversion and attitudes towards COVID and vaccines. These results shed new light on the interplay of anxiety and risk and loss aversion and they can provide useful directions for clinical intervention.