Strategy Selection during Exploratory Behavior: Sex Differences

Catherine Brandner

《Judgment and Decision Making》 2卷5期 (2007/10) Pp. 326-332

並列摘要

This study was designed to assess sex-related differences in the selection of an appropriate strategy when facing novelty. A simple visuo-spatial task was used to investigate exploratory behavior as a specific response to novelty. The exploration task was followed by a visual discrimination task, and the responses were analyzed using signal detection theory.
During exploration women selected a local searching strategy in which the metric distance between what is already known and what is unknown was reduced, whereas men adopted a global strategy based on an approximately uniform distribution of choices. Women's exploratory behavior gives rise to a notion of a secure base warranting a sense of safety while men's behavior does not appear to be influenced by risk. This sex-related difference was interpreted as a difference in beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events influencing risk evaluation.

並列關鍵字

exploration ； spontaneous strategies ； sex differences ； decision-making