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Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making

Our choices often arise from a consideration of options presented in a sequence (e.g. the products in a supermarket row). However, whether the precise sequential order of option presentation affects decision-making remains poorly understood. A recent model of choice proposes that, in a set of option...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Rigoli, Francesco, Dolan, Raymond
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304046/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30963894
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2472
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author Rigoli, Francesco
Dolan, Raymond
author_facet Rigoli, Francesco
Dolan, Raymond
author_sort Rigoli, Francesco
collection PubMed
description Our choices often arise from a consideration of options presented in a sequence (e.g. the products in a supermarket row). However, whether the precise sequential order of option presentation affects decision-making remains poorly understood. A recent model of choice proposes that, in a set of options presented sequentially, those that are better than expected will be perceived as more valuable, even when options are objectively equivalent within the set. Inspired by this proposal, we devised a novel decision-making task where we manipulated the order of option presentation together with expectations about option value. Even when we compared trials that were exactly equivalent except for option order, we observed a striking preference for options that were better than expected. Our findings show that expectations about options affect which option will be favoured within a sequence, an influence which is manifested as a preference for better-than-expected options. The findings have potential practical implications, as for example they may help policymakers in devising nudge strategies that rely on ad hoc option orders.
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spelling pubmed-63040462019-01-02 Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making Rigoli, Francesco Dolan, Raymond Proc Biol Sci Neuroscience and Cognition Our choices often arise from a consideration of options presented in a sequence (e.g. the products in a supermarket row). However, whether the precise sequential order of option presentation affects decision-making remains poorly understood. A recent model of choice proposes that, in a set of options presented sequentially, those that are better than expected will be perceived as more valuable, even when options are objectively equivalent within the set. Inspired by this proposal, we devised a novel decision-making task where we manipulated the order of option presentation together with expectations about option value. Even when we compared trials that were exactly equivalent except for option order, we observed a striking preference for options that were better than expected. Our findings show that expectations about options affect which option will be favoured within a sequence, an influence which is manifested as a preference for better-than-expected options. The findings have potential practical implications, as for example they may help policymakers in devising nudge strategies that rely on ad hoc option orders. The Royal Society 2018-12-19 2018-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6304046/ /pubmed/30963894 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2472 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience and Cognition
Rigoli, Francesco
Dolan, Raymond
Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making
title Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making
title_full Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making
title_fullStr Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making
title_full_unstemmed Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making
title_short Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making
title_sort better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making
topic Neuroscience and Cognition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304046/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30963894
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2472
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