Monoamine Oxidase A Gene (MAOA) Associated with Attitude Towards Longshot Risks

Decision making often entails longshot risks involving a small chance of receiving a substantial outcome. People tend to be risk preferring (averse) when facing longshot risks involving significant gains (losses). This differentiation towards longshot risks underpins the markets for lottery as well...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 4; no. 12; p. e8516
Main Authors Zhong, Songfa, Israel, Salomon, Xue, Hong, Ebstein, Richard P., Chew, Soo Hong
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 31.12.2009
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Adult
Alleles
Amine oxidase (flavin-containing)
Anxiety
Attitude
Brain research
Decision making
Economics
Expected utility
Female
Gene Frequency - genetics
Gene polymorphism
Genes
Genetic polymorphisms
Humans
Impulsivity
Insurance
Lotteries
Male
Monoamine oxidase
Monoamine Oxidase - genetics
Neurobiology
Neuroscience/Behavioral Neuroscience
Neuroscience/Cognitive Neuroscience
Neuroscience/Psychology
Neurosciences
Oxidase
Personality
Polymorphism
Probability
Risk taking
Science
Social sciences
Studies
Hong Kong China
Singapore
Israel
Jerusalem Israel
China
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Summary:Decision making often entails longshot risks involving a small chance of receiving a substantial outcome. People tend to be risk preferring (averse) when facing longshot risks involving significant gains (losses). This differentiation towards longshot risks underpins the markets for lottery as well as for insurance. Both lottery and insurance have emerged since ancient times and continue to play a useful role in the modern economy. In this study, we observe subjects' incentivized choices in a controlled laboratory setting, and investigate their association with a widely studied, promoter-region repeat functional polymorphism in monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA). We find that subjects with the high activity (4-repeat) allele are characterized by a preference for the longshot lottery and also less insurance purchasing than subjects with the low activity (3-repeat) allele. This is the first result to link attitude towards longshot risks to a specific gene. It complements recent findings on the neurobiological basis of economic risk taking.
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Conceived and designed the experiments: SZ SHHC. Performed the experiments: SZ HX SHHC. Analyzed the data: SZ SI HX RPE SHHC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HX RPE. Wrote the paper: SZ SI RPE SHHC.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0008516