Men and women choose different financial strategies

making important financial decisions, men tend to try to get as bigger picture, while women pay much more attention to small details.

Which is better: a series of small victories immediately or a big reward, but in the future?This dilemma can poison every decision we make, whether investments or diet.Recent studies have shown that men and women use different strategies to make a selection in each of these situations.

To understand what decisions are taken by representatives of different sexes, when in front of them stands a choice like "a little, but immediately a big score, but In the long term," the researchers offered participants play games of chance.

In most of these experiments, between the playing styles of men and women big difference was not found.However, one experiment, gained fame as the Iowa Gambling Task, gave an unexpected result: he has shown that men are much better than women cope with the choice of an effective strategy when at stake is a big win.

Researchers from the University of Iowa have asked a group of participants to play the game: the players put four decks, and they had to take turns to take one card from any one of them.Different maps can bring participants a premium or penalty.What will it be - they did not know in advance, but had to maximize their profits.

In addition, for each deck had its own winning combination.Two decks premiums were small, but much more frequent.However, those chosen mainly from those card decks, resulting in loss waited.Maps of the remaining two decks sometimes brought large gains, but more often turned around by small fines.However, in the long run, those who choose the card decks of these wins.Thus, the strategy leading to victory for the players were quite apparent.

A survey published scientific journal Behavioural Brain Research, said the following trends: men focused on the big picture, counting a total win, and make a choice in favor of those decks that give more chances to win in the long run.Women are more focused on the details - on the frequency of prizes and penalties that gave each deck, and lost sight of the big picture.Women were more sensitive to losses, and eventually begins to take only one card deck, which were associated with a lower risk of loss.Because of this, women were more difficult to identify truly a winning strategy.

above two strategies are related to differences in the activation of the orbitofrontal cortex - a brain region located just behind the eyes and related decision-making and assessment of the expected positive or negative consequences.During the decision-making Women have more activity in the middle of the field (which is responsible for the typical patterns of behavior and the expectation of immediate reward), and men - in the upper part (implying unusual models and the expectation of remuneration in the long run).

«Errors of women in the performance of this task is actually linked to the process of information processing, - said one of the study's authors, a neuroscientist at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), Ruud van den Bos.Attention to detail makes women more susceptible to change.If suddenly, for example, in the middle of a game combination of cards in each deck have changed, they would have noticed it earlier than men.In this case, the game "for the future" was the best strategy, but in situations that really require attention to detail, the advantage may be in women.

van den Bos emphasized that decision-making in real life - a much more complicated process than what can be simulated in the laboratory.Therefore, it would be wrong to assert that any of the strategies or better and more effective.

They are just different - and that's all.

Articles Source: mixstuff.ru