FINANCIAL CHOICES UNDER GAINS, LOSSES, AND SHORT-TERM TARGETS

This study looks at how adults respond to financial decisions involving gains, losses and short term business targets. An anonymous questionnaire received 60 submissions, of which 56 met the age and consent requirements. Each respondent answered paired gain/loss questions and two business scenarios involving research and development (R&D) spending and cybersecurity. In the second gain/loss pair, 73.2% chose a gamble when facing a loss, compared with 48.2% when facing a gain (exact McNemar p = 0.0125). Respondents were also more willing to reduce R&D spending (32.1%) than postpone a cybersecurity upgrade (14.3%; p = 0.0129). Both comparisons remained below 0.05 after a Holm adjustment across three selected paired tests. Experience with numerical performance targets did not show a consistent relationship with either business choice. The questionnaire describes stated choices in specific scenarios; it does not establish that quarterly pressure causes risky decisions. The findings point to the importance of context when people assess financial trade-offs.