neuropsychology of decision making

introduction

the dopamine-basal ganglia and OFC-amygdala neural pathways of regret play an important role in adaptive behaviour and decision making
genomic MRI studies appear to show¹⁾:
- those who were better at being able to imagine their competitor's thinking and anticipate and respond to the actions of others (belief learning) had a variation in three genes that affect how dopamine functions in the medial prefrontal cortex.
- those who were better at trial-and-error learning had a variation in two genes that primarily affect dopamine in the brain's striatal region

Nero fiddling while Rome burns - occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis

ignorance is bliss
continuing along a decision path or plan when there does not appear to be any significant risks in doing so
adherence to the status quo in an unreflective manner

occurs when there may be risks to maintaining the status quo but the prospects for discovering better alternatives appears grim
evasive:
- reminders of the decision are ignored and distractions are sought
avoidance of responsibility:
- responsibility for the decision is shifted to others
bolstering:
- the decision maker seeks reasons, in a biased manner, to support an inferior course of action

see http://psych.cf.ac.uk/insciout/docs/Anderson_2003_PsychBulletin.pdf
human decision makers have a tendency to prefer options that cause no change in the state of the world (the status quo) and/or require no action on their part (omissions)

selection difficulty
- difficult to operationalize or define independently of the variables that produce it
- decision strategy
  - negative emotions - neuroticism, past experiences, tradeoff difficulty
  - effort/accuracy tradeoff
  - decision option attractiveness difference
  - decision option set size
  - time limitations
  - attentional focus - conflict type (approach-avoidance)
- reason - a justification for a decision is equivalent to having a reason for selecting a particular option.
- preference uncertainty - a state of being unsure of which of two or more options best meets one’s goals or criteria for choice.
- degree of structure -unstructured, ill-defined decisions should be more difficult than well-defined decisions
- attractiveness of option set
- cultural values
anticipated regret or blame
- reversibility of outcome
- expected outcome feedback
- anticipated future opportunities
- mutability
  - the ease of constructing counterfactual alternatives to it
- perceived responsibility
  - more likely to anticipate regret when they perceive themselves as personally responsible for the outcome.
- regret aversion:
  - avoidance of making a decision which may lead to regret
- loss aversion:
  - tendency to weight potential losses greater than potential gains of the same amount
cost of action or change
preference stability
- the degree to which people’s values remain the same over time and thus their consecutive decisions.

status quo
- opting for the status quo can be “rational” if either:
  - preferences are unchanged
  - there are costs for change
  - there is uncertainty regarding the consequences of non-status quo options
- but often the decision to maintain the status quo does not have this rational reasonings and thus represents status quo bias
- status quo options may be seen as less threatening and could thus serve to reduce negative emotion that is experienced prior to making the choice (termed anticipatory emotions).
omission
- omission bias is an inflated preference for options that do not require action
deferral
- an individual chooses not to choose for the time being
- taking time to search for better alternatives
- choosing not to purchase any of a variety of options
- avoiding responsibility for the decision altogether
- often associated with higher degrees of conflict
- conflicts in a decision, such as those that put different values at odds, often lead to negative emotion
- deferral is less likely in approach–approach conflicts (decisions between two attractive choices) than in avoidance–avoidance conflicts (choices between two unattractive options)

¹⁾