More than 45% of NCAA fans in Studies 5 and 6, for instance, turned down a ' free ' real $5 bet against their team. Reluctance to hedge identity-relevant outcomes produced two anomalies in decision making, risk seeking and dominance violations. They also more readily accepted hedges with diagnostic costs when the pecuniary rewards associated with those hedges were greater. Participants readily accepted hedges and pure gambles with no diagnostic costs. Reluctance to hedge occurred when the diagnostic cost of the negative self-signal that hedging would produce outweighed the pecuniary rewards associated with hedging. Reluctance to hedge desired outcomes stemmed from identity signaling, a desire to preserve an important aspect of the bettor's identity. This reluctance was not attributable to optimism or a general aversion to hedging. presidential candidates and Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball, and NCAA hockey teams. We found substantial reluctance to bet against the success of preferred U.S. W e examined whether people reduce the impact of negative outcomes through emotional hedging-betting against the occurrence of desired outcomes.
