Are the effects of self-control depletion on financial risk-taking domain specific?

This poster was presented at IAREP/SABE 2019 in Dublin, Ireland

The study employs a 3 (Ego-depletion task condition: Depletion condition, Control condition, No task condition) x 3 (Self-control cue specificity: Domain specific, Domain general or Control) independent, experimental design (see Figure 1). The Ego-depletion task used is a version of the Stroop test, which facilitates ego-depletion by requiring inhibitory control (e.g. Kelley, Finley, and Schmeichel (2019)). Two versions of the Stroop task are employed, along with the No task condition: the Depletion condition included both congruent and non-congruent stimuli, whereas the Control condition included only congruent stimuli. Consistent with Dahm et al. (2011), this design is used to facilitate a more effective comparison of the effects of depletion, given that any comparison to No task would likely show some effect. The self-control cues are presented as part of the financial choice (coin-toss) task, with the Domain specific cues focusing on financial self-control and the Domain general cues focusing on general self-control behaviours. The dependent variable is risk-taking behaviour, measured as the number of risk-taking responses made on the financial choice (coin-toss) task. Covariate measures taken include Trait self-control (The Brief Self-control Inventory: Lindner, Nagy, and Retels-dorf, 2015), Impulsiveness (The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale: Stanford et al., 2009) and Risk proclivity (The Domain-specific Risk-attitude Scale: Weber, Blais, and Betz, 2002).