THE EFFECT OF BODY POSTURE MANIPULATION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOR AND INTEROCEPTIVE AWARENESS

Decision-making behavior, which has an important effect on modulating behavior, is a high cognitive function. On the other hand, risk-taking, as an important concept that emerges during the evaluation of possible outcomes in the decision process, can be influenced by many factors. One of these is interoceptive information, which expresses the ability to be aware of bodily signals. Increasing evidence suggests that internal perception can influence risk-taking behavior. However, in processing interoceptive information, how the body posture is relative to gravity is considered an element that will manipulate the decision-making process. In this respect, the relationship between people's interoceptive awareness levels and risk-taking behaviors was examined in this study. BART (Balloon Analogue Risk Task) was used to measure risk-taking behavior, and the MAIA (Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-Version 2) scale was used for interoceptive awareness assessment. After the participants answered the MAIA scale, they completed the BART task in two different positions, supine and upright. A randomizer was used for the administration order. The data analyses presented; descriptive statistics, t-tests and ANOVA analyses for differences between groups according to interoceptive awareness levels and administration order, and correlation analyses to show the relationship between MAIA scores and BART data. According to the results, it has been demonstrated that interoceptive awareness affected risk-taking behavior. This effect was supported by the results that the body posture and the levels of interoceptive awareness made a difference between the groups and that there was a negative correlation between risk-taking behavior and interoceptive awareness in general. Key words: Risk-taking, interoceptive awareness, BART, MAIA, body posture