Accountability and Risk Taking

An experiment examined whether accountability causes people to prefer more cautious, less risky choice alternatives. Self described high and low risk takers chose between pairs of lotteries varying in riskiness under conditions where they either would (accountable condition) or would not (unaccountable condition) have to explain and justify their decisions to others. When accountable, low risk takers became extremely risk averse, whereas high risk takers became slightly but not significantly riskier in their decisions. A second study found that high but not low risk takers admired and thought other people admired risk takers more than risk avoiders, which may explain the former's preference for risk when they are accountable. When low risk takers are accountable, caution provides relative security as well as the satisfaction that their actions are at least as admirable as if they had taken risks.