Experienced poker players made mathematically more accurate decisions than inexperienced ones. The results showed that anger reduced mathematical accuracy of decision making only when participants were “being watched” by a pair of moving eyes. In addition, we manipulated the emotional and social conditions under which the tasks were presented, in a 2 × 2 experimental setup: (1) Anger versus neutral emotional state-participants were primed either with an anger-inducing, or emotionally neutral story, and (2) Social cue versus non-social cue-during the tasks, either an image of a pair of human eyes was “following” the mouse cursor, or an image of a black moving box was presented. We designed an Internet-based experiment, where participants’ (N = 459) mathematical accuracy in five different poker decision making tasks were assessed. Furthermore, various social aspects of the game-such as losing against “bad players” due to “bad luck”-seem to fuel these emotional states.

Previous research indicates that experiencing negative emotions, such as moral anger, reduces mathematical accuracy in poker decision making. Thus, poker provides a productive environment for studying the effects of emotional and social factors on micro-economic decision making. Poker is a social game, where success depends on both game strategic knowledge and emotion regulation abilities.

Poker table 7 of spades