Fast & slow decisions under risk: Intuition rather than deliberation drives advantageous choices

Abstract

Would you take a gamble with a 10% chance to gain $100 and a 90% chance to lose $10? Even though this gamble has a positive expected value, most people would avoid taking it given the high chance of losing money. Popular “fast-and-slow” dual process theories of risky decision making assume that to take expected value into account and avoid a loss aversion bias, people need to deliberate. In this paper we directly test whether reasoners can also consider expected value benefit intuitively, in the absence of deliberation. To do so, we presented participants with bets and lotteries in which they could choose between a risky expected-value-based choice and a safe loss averse option. We used a two-response paradigm where participants made two choices in every trial: an initial intuitive choice under time-pressure and cognitive load and a final choice without constraints where they could freely deliberate. Results showed that in most trials participants were loss averse, both in the intuitive and deliberate stages. However, when people opted for the expected-value-based choice after deliberating, they had predominantly already arrived at this choice intuitively. Additionally, loss averse participants often showed an intuitive sensitivity to expected value (as reflected in decreased confidence). Overall, these results suggest that deliberation is not the primary route for expected-value-based responding in risky decision making. Risky decisions may be better conceptualized as an interplay between different types of “fast” intuitions rather than between two different types of “fast” and “slow” thinking per se.