Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2020 Aug 13;15(8):e0232385. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232385. eCollection 2020.
Classical value-based decision theories state that economic choices are solely based on the value of available options. Experimental evidence suggests, however, that individuals' choices are biased towards default options, prompted by the framing of decisions. Although the effects of default options created by exogenous framing-such as how choice options are displayed-are well-documented, little is known about the potential effects and properties of endogenous framing, that is, originating from an individual's internal state. In this study, we investigated the existence and properties of endogenous default options in a task involving choices between risky lotteries. By manipulating and examining the effects of three experimental features-time pressure, time spent on task and relative choice proportion towards a specific option-, we reveal and dissociate two features of endogenous default options which bias individuals' choices: a natural tendency to prefer certain types of options (natural default), and the tendency to implicitly learn a default option from past choices (learned default). Additional analyses suggest that while the natural default may bias the standard choice process towards an option category, the learned default effects may be attributable to a second independent choice process. Overall, these investigations provide a first experimental evidence of how individuals build and apply diverse endogenous default options in economic decision-making and how this biases their choices.
经典的基于价值的决策理论表明，经济选择仅基于可用选项的价值。然而，实验证据表明，个体的选择受到决策框架的影响而偏向于默认选项。尽管由外部框架（例如选择选项的显示方式）产生的默认选项的影响已经得到很好的记录，但对于源自个体内部状态的内源性框架的潜在影响和特性知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们在涉及风险彩票选择的任务中研究了内源性默认选项的存在和特性。通过操纵和检查三个实验特征（时间压力、任务花费的时间以及对特定选项的相对选择比例）的影响，我们揭示并区分了两种内源性默认选项的特征，这些特征会影响个体的选择：一种是偏好某些类型选项的自然倾向（自然默认），另一种是从过去选择中隐含学习默认选项的倾向（学习默认）。进一步的分析表明，虽然自然默认可能会使标准选择过程偏向于某个选项类别，但学习默认的影响可能归因于第二个独立的选择过程。总的来说，这些研究提供了第一个关于个体如何在经济决策中构建和应用各种内源性默认选项以及这些默认选项如何影响他们选择的实验证据。
