Is Courage a Double-Edged Sword?

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We all would like to believe that we have the courage to make difficult choices in our lives, whether they be personal decisions, or choices at work or about our careers. How does courage impact our decision making? Kellogg Professor Derek Rucker and University of Illinois-Chicago Professor David Gal set out to examine this question. They started by noting that a great deal of experimental research has documented the loss aversion phenomenon, i.e. the notion that losses loom larger than gains.  Yet, they wondered why people actually make very bold decisions at times in their personal and professional lives.  Loss aversion does not always seem to inhibit their ability to take a big swing.  To examine this issue further, the scholars conducted several interesting experiments.

In one experiment, they studied the decision making of over 500 research subjects. First, they asked half of the participants to write about an occasion when a person they knew had displayed courage. The other half of the research subjects wrote about an individual accomplishing something quite ordinary. Then the participants faced a decision. One half of the research subjects confronted a crucial decision regarding a serious illness. The other half faced a fairly trivial choice regarding a small sum of money. Those who wrote about someone's past courageous choice were much more likely to choose the riskier option in the medical decision. However, when it came to the fairly trivial monetary decision, little difference existed between the two groups of participants. Courage didn't play a factor in the trivial choice.  It mattered a great deal on the serious, high-risk decision.  

In a second experiment, they recruited over 400 research subjects. One half read about a substantial career gamble. The others read about a significant monetary gamble.  In other words, this time both choices involved a high degree of risk.  They wanted each choice to evoke some degree of fear. Their pretesting confirmed that. However, pretesting also revealed that the career gamble was "more purposeful, couragous, and worthy of respect." Then they asked each research subject to rate how important courage was to them. Finally, the participants had to make the crucial decision (either about career or money). In both decisions, courage increased people's willingness to make the riskier choice, but much more so for the career gamble than the monetary situation.

Rucker concludes, “This suggests that, in contrast to some of the findings in controlled laboratory gambles, people might have a radically different response to risk in some situations. When people see an opportunity to be courageous, and want to see themselves as courageous, that may actually lead to a preference for the riskier option.”

What do we make of these findings?  Well, courage certainly is a desirable attribute.  It enables us to make bold choices that can propel our organizations and careers forward.  However, we have to wonder if our desire to feel and appear courageous might push us to make some rash or ill-advised decisions at times.  Should we really approach the serious decision with a greater propensity to take risk as compared to the trivial decision? Is that an appropriate thing to do?  Courage, it appears, is a double-edged sword.