Watch Out: Hunger Leads You To Take Irrational Risks!​

What About Humans, Then?

The hormone ghrelin, we now know, plays a key role in the underlying reason behind the fact that hunger can lead to poor decision making, or rather, perhaps, short-term decision making opposed to long-term planning. Unlike the very interesting rat study, however, humans have more decisions to make than whether we'd like one slice or pizza now, or several later. To what extent does rational risk assessment go out the window when humans are hungry, then? A 2010 study entitled Metabolic State Alters Economic Decision Making in Humans Under Risk sheds some light on that question. 

The study made the startling discovery that those study subjects who were purposely starved for the experiment — and thus under the influence of ghrelin — were far more willing to take financial risks in a gambling game than those who were well fed. The hungrier the subjects were, the more willing they became to take risks. 

What Does This Mean For You?

Research into how hunger influences human decision making and risk taking is still rather limited, however, and I'm sure we can expect lots of fascinating new findings over the coming years. How does nutritional quality impact how risk prone we are, for instance, as opposed to whether we are hungry or not? Do people with a history of hunger and malnutrition perhaps have the tendency to be more impulsive in the long-term, even during a time when they are no longer suffering from food shortages? Is there any way to counter the natural tendency towards impulsivity while hungry? One day, we'll hopefully have answers to all these fascinating questions. 

Meanwhile, though, the studies that currently do exist show us that hunger, too, has a place in the risk perception gap — the thing that explains why most people are more frightened of terrorist attacks than dying of smoking, for instance, or why a product they'd never usually buy suddenly becomes appealing when it's on special offer. 

READ Healthy Eating Starts At Home

The discovery that hunger leads to increased impulsivity and risk taking by essentially taking over our whole being on a subconscious level has far-reaching implications all in itself. It shows us that making financial and other important decisions while hungry is bad for us, and even has us questioning whether our political leaders or employers are taking appropriate care of their nutritional needs. Should we be worried if they are on a diet, perhaps? Finally, it tells us that, despite the scientific advances humans have made, we're really not all that different to any other animal.