# Individual differences in decision making under uncertainty

> **NIH NIH R01** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $665,586

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The outcomes of our actions are seldom certain. Individuals vary substantially in their attitudes towards
uncertainty: some seek it, while others avoid it at all costs. These individual differences are important, because
they largely shape who we are, and because they are linked to variability in a host of maladaptive behaviors
and mental disorders. The underlying causes for these individual differences, however, are poorly understood.
To unravel the neural mechanisms of individual differences in behavior under uncertainty we must obtain a
detailed understanding of that behavior. We do know that uncertainty attitudes are context dependent. For
example, attitudes towards uncertain gains are not strongly correlated with attitudes towards uncertain losses.
This suggests that uncertainty attitudes result from interactions between several cognitive and motivational
processes. The proposed studies will test the contribution of three basic processes to uncertainty attitudes: the
individual's ability to reduce uncertainty by learning from feedback, her sensitivity to rewards, and her
sensitivity to punishments. We hypothesize that posterior parietal mechanisms play an important role in
shaping individual uncertainty attitudes based on these cognitive and motivational processes. We plan to test
these hypotheses in a group of 200 men and women from the general population, using three behavioral tasks
in conjunction with structural and functional MRI. To ensure that our behavioral measures are independent of
each other, we will estimate risk and ambiguity attitudes, in reward and punishment domains, in the absence of
learning, and examine both learning and anticipation of rewards and punishments in the absence of decision
making.
The expected outcomes of the proposed work are twofold. At the behavioral level, we expect to obtain a
detailed understanding of the role of learning, as well as reward and punishment processing, in individual
uncertainty attitudes. At the neural level, we expect to identify structural features and functional mechanisms
that underlie these individual differences, thus providing computational constraints on these processes. We
expect these findings to guide the future development of individually-tailored decision aids and behavioral
interventions for individuals with maladaptive decision processes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10146483
- **Project number:** 5R01MH118215-03
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Ifat Levy
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $665,586
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-16 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10146483

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10146483, Individual differences in decision making under uncertainty (5R01MH118215-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10146483. Licensed CC0.

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