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Acetaminophen's Effects on Social Economic Decision-Making

Roberts, Ian D
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500554272571145

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Psychology.
Acetaminophen has long been assumed to act as an analgesic selective for physical pain, but recent research has begun to find that it has broader psychological effects. Here I test whether acetaminophen has effects on decision-making in interpersonal contexts. Across five experiments employing widely-used social economic choice tasks, I find evidence that acetaminophen has multiple effects on interpersonal economic decisions and that the effects are consistent with a dampened influence of affect on decision-making as was predicted by past work on affect and decision-making (Lerner, Li, Valdesolo, & Kassam, 2015). First, acetaminophen reduced the effects of social expectations on trusting behavior. Investors in a trust game on acetaminophen, relative to placebo, were less trusting when they expected reciprocation, but were more trusting when they expected betrayal. In a replication of this effect, acetaminophen also blunted self-reported affective responses to expected outcomes. Acetaminophen did not change expectations in either study. Because expectations were measured in the initial studies, I next manipulated investor expectations for trustee behavior and this time found evidence that acetaminophen overall increased trusting behavior. To test whether acetaminophen might particularly reduce the influence of nonsalient sources of affect, I used an ultimatum game and found that, as expected, acetaminophen dampened responsiveness to trial-to-trial changes in the fairness of proposals. Finally, I extend the findings in an applied direction and demonstrate that acetaminophen might increase interpersonal trust among people high in borderline personality features. These experiments provide the first demonstration that an over-the-counter drug can impact the fundamental social processes of trust and fairness.
Baldwin Way (Advisor)
Ian Krajbich (Committee Member)
Dylan Wagner (Committee Member)
115 p.
Psychology
acetaminophen; paracetamol; decision-making; affect; trust game; ultimatum game

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Roberts, I. D. (2017). Acetaminophen's Effects on Social Economic Decision-Making [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500554272571145

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Roberts, Ian. Acetaminophen's Effects on Social Economic Decision-Making. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500554272571145.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Roberts, Ian. "Acetaminophen's Effects on Social Economic Decision-Making." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500554272571145

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1500554272571145
203
© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.