Unlucky in love, lucky in the game?

Well,….no. American scientists have studied this at the University of Michigan in the United States and it turns out that as a single person is a larger risk taker when it comes gambling. If you’re lucky in love, you are also happier in the game because you take less risky decisions and therefore lose less. This is the surprising conclusion of a study involving volunteers.

Unlucky in love? Singles take more risks!

Psychologist Joshua Ackerman did a number of experiments under single heterosexual volunteers to see if there is a link between the expected success in love and taking risky financial decisions and it turned out there is. The question is of course how Ackerman has investigated this.

The first group of volunteers got some pictures showing men and women between 18 and 35 years who were supposedly living in the area. Some participants got to see more men, others more women. After this, the researchers asked how many women and men they had seen. This was followed by the question: “would you prefer to buy 10 scratch cards for $ 1 each, with 10 times the risk of $ 1,000 or 1 scratch card for $ 10, with a 1 time chance to win $ 10,000”.

Primal instincts determine willingness to take risks

The result was remarkable: participants who had seen fewer photos of the opposite sex chose the $ 10 scratch card more often. A smaller chance, at a larger prize. Ackerman goes back to evolutionary principles whereby a man is prepared to take greater risks if the chance of finding a partner is smaller.

The second experiment was reading a newspaper article by the volunteers about the demographic developments in their region. There were statements like: ‘there are many more boys than girls born’. Or that ‘more girls than boys were born’. Afterwards, the participants received various packages of shares and they had to choose where they would like to invest. Here too, the outcome was surprising: Participants who had read in the newspaper article that fewer potential partners were born in their region, opted for the riskier shares.

Singles are more at risk

More risky choices can cause you to lose everything, but it can also cause you to rise above the competition in, for example, prosperity and status. When the chance of finding a partner is smaller, then you are, driven by primal instincts, prepared to take more risks. Unhappiness in love therefore means that you take more risks, also in other areas. Just so you know.