Emotion is a well-established mediator of decision-making, including prospective economic decisions, but does it affect the way we respond economically to loss? According to classic economic theories, when an object is lost and cannot be recovered, our emotional attachment to that object should be irrelevant for decisions such as choosing whether to claim insurance or compensation. Intriguingly, however, this does not appear to be the case: in a series of experiments, Hsee and Kunreuther (2000) found that when people have higher affection towards an object, they are more sensitive to its loss and are more willing to claim compensation or purchase insurance for the object. They explained these findings according to an influential “consolation hypothesis” in which people see insurance compensation as means to mitigate against the emotional distress associated with property loss.

 

Using a large online sample (N=1000), Law and Feldman (2023) propose to replicate four of six studies from Hsee and Kunreuther (2000), each asking (primarily) whether people with higher affection towards an object are more willing to claim compensation or purchase insurance for that object. In each experiment, participants are randomly assigned to either a high affection group or a low affection group and then given a scenario in which the level of affection to an object is correspondingly manipulated while the monetary value is held constant. For example, for high affection: “You liked the now-damaged painting very much and you fell in love with it at first sight. Although you paid only $100, it was worth a lot more to you”, and for low affection: “You were not particularly crazy about the now-damaged painting. You paid $100 for it, and that’s about how much you think it was worth.” A range of dependent measures are then collected, including the maximum hours participants would be willing to spend driving to claim compensation, the maximum amount participants would be willing to pay for insurance, and how likely participants would be to claim compensation or purchase insurance. As part of the replication, the authors have also built in manipulation checks to confirm that the scenarios influenced participants' (imagined) level of affection for the object, and a range of exploratory analyses.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/b7y5z
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

References
 

1. Hsee, C. K., & Kunreuther, H. C. (2000). The affection effect in insurance decisions. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 20, 141-159. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007876907268

2. Law, Y. Y. & Feldman, G. (2023). Revisiting the impact of affection on insurance purchase and claim decision-making: Replication and extensions Registered Report of Hsee and Kunreuther (2000), in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/b7y5z