Risk-defusing behaviour: Towards an understanding of risky decision making

Abstract

This experiment shows that at least in some quasi-naturalistic risky decision situations decision makers engage actively in risk defusing (e.g., by searching for control, worst-case plans or new alternatives) instead of "passively" evaluating values and probabilities. Forty non-students made decisions in two quasi-naturalistic non-lottery tasks. Most participants revealed behaviour indicating risk defusing. Risk-defusing operators were used much more often in connection with the chosen alternative than with the not-chosen one. The method of information presentation was varied systematically: Unstructured and structured versions of the method of active information search (the participant gets a basic description of the task, and has to ask questions from the experimenter to get additional information) were compared. In the structured version, decision makers deal increasingly with the uncertain aspects of the alternatives and with control and worst-case plans.