Does happiness affect decision making in goal setting, risk taking, and profitability situations?

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate whether happiness affects decision making in different situations-. goal setting, risk-taking, and profitability situations. Eighty University students age ranging from 18 to 28 of both gender (44 males & 36 females) took part in an experiment with experimental and control conditions. Three video clips have been made depicting goal setting, risk-taking, and profitability conditions. The state of happiness was induced by showing a comedy video clip in the experimental group but not in the control group. Chi-square test (non-parametric test) has been used for quantitative data analysis and MAXQDA (software for qualitative data analysis) for qualitative data analysis. The results suggested that significant effects of happiness on all three decision-making conditions are not found. However, it is found that there is likely to be a significant difference in the risk-taking condition. Further, the participants were asked to explain the reason for choosing the selected alternatives with an open-ended question. It was observed that happiness (positive emotion) affects the decision-maker while choosing decision alternatives related to goal setting, risk-taking, and profitability situations.