Kandasamy, Narayanan, Garfinkel, Sarah, Page, Lionel, Hardy, Ben, Critchley, Hugo, Gurnell, Mark and Coates, John M (2016) Interoceptive ability predicts survival on a London trading floor. Scientific Reports, 6. p. 32986. ISSN 2045-2322

PDF - Published Version Download (230kB)

Abstract

Interoception is the sensing of physiological signals originating inside the body, such as hunger, pain and heart rate. People with greater sensitivity to interoceptive signals, as measured by, for example,
tests of heart beat detection, perform better in laboratory studies of risky decision-making. However,
there has been little field work to determine if interoceptive sensitivity contributes to success in realworld, high-stakes risk taking. Here, we report on a study in which we quantified heartbeat detection skills in a group of financial traders working on a London trading floor. We found that traders are better able to perceive their own heartbeats than matched controls from the non-trading population. Moreover, the interoceptive ability of traders predicted their relative profitability, and strikingly, how long they survived in the financial markets. Our results suggest that signals from the body - the gut feelings of financial lore - contribute to success in the markets.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	interoception, emotion, neuroeconomics, finance
Schools and Departments:	Brighton and Sussex Medical School > Neuroscience
Research Centres and Groups:	Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science
Subjects:	Q Science > QP Physiology > QP0351 Neurophysiology and neuropsychology Q Science > QZ Psychology
Depositing User:	Hugo Critchley
Date Deposited:	31 Oct 2016 16:38
Last Modified:	25 Jul 2017 23:53
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/65138

View download statistics for this item

📧 Request an update