A Bibliometric Analysis of Experiment-Based Approaches to Risk Preference in Decision Making. 25 Years in Review

The attributes of a publication are interconnected: authors are linked to journals; keywords are associated with abstracts and titles. Scientific publications often cite other scholarly works. All these relationships give rise to complex networks whose analysis makes it possible to uncover the inner structures of a research field. Previous research has investigated the fields of Behavioural Economics and Behavioural Finance through bibliometric methods, highlighting the influence of several key authors on the fields, and following the evolution of these fields. Following the bibliometric science mapping methodology – citation analysis, co-citation analysis, co-authors analysis, co-word analysis – as well as employing time-sliced thematic analysis, this paper analysed the use of experimental approaches in evaluating risk preferences in decision making. The main objectives of this paper were to investigate advances to the field in the period 2001-2025, to map out the thematic evolution of the field, and to identify potential research gaps. Following the analysis of 817 scientific articles from the Web of Science collection, science mapping methods determined the influence of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on subsequent approaches to risk preferences; revealed the collaborative ties between the USA, the UK and China; and established overall thematic clusters – approaches using behavioural economics, psychology and neuroscience, and rigorous methodological frameworks based on experimental economics. Thematic analysis over 25 years revealed that prospect theory and experimental economics methods have become foundational to the field, while approaches have shifted from neurocognitive frameworks toward more economics-psychology integrations and the study of demographic differences.