Risk taking for potential losses but not gains increases with time of day

Bedder, Rachel L.; Vaghi, Matilde M.; Dolan, Raymond J.; Rutledge, Robb B.

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-31738-x

Risk taking for potential losses but not gains increases with time of day

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Bedder, Rachel L., Vaghi, Matilde M., Dolan, Raymond J. and Rutledge, Robb B. (2023) Risk taking for potential losses but not gains increases with time of day. Scientific Reports, 13 (1). ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

Humans exhibit distinct risk preferences when facing choices involving potential gains and losses. These preferences are believed to be subject to neuromodulatory influence, particularly from dopamine and serotonin. As neuromodulators manifest circadian rhythms, this suggests decision making under risk might be affected by time of day. Here, in a large subject sample collected using a smartphone application, we found that risky options with potential losses were increasingly chosen over the course of the day. We observed this result in both a within-subjects design (N = 2599) comparing risky options chosen earlier and later in the day in the same individuals, and in a between-subjects design (N = 26,720) showing our effect generalizes across ages and genders. Using computational modelling, we show this diurnal change in risk preference reflects a decrease in sensitivity to increasing losses, but no change was observed in the relative impacts of gains and losses on choice (i.e., loss aversion). Thus, our findings reveal a striking diurnal modulation in human decision making, a pattern with potential importance for real-life decisions that include voting, medical decisions, and financial investments.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability: The datasets analysed during the current study are available in a Dryad repository, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.prr4xgxkk. Code availability: Code to generate the figures is avaliable at https://github.com/RachelBedder/RiskTaking_ScientificReports.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	general ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1000
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Jun 2026 09:00
Last Modified:	25 Jun 2026 13:57
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103481
DOI:	10.1038/s41598-023-31738-x

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