A wealth of research indicates that the propensity to take risks declines with advancing age. Theoretical accounts of age-related differences in risk-taking propensity center on developmental changes, namely, age-related changes in goal orientation and cognitive and biological functioning. The current research identifies a person's social environment as another factor in shaping risk-taking propensity across the lifetime. In three experiments, we investigated how the social information people seek and receive from others about risky activities shapes their risk-taking propensity. In a novel decision task, participants received descriptions of the experiences of others (i.e., recommenders) to inform their evaluations of risky activities (in the financial and recreational domains; e.g., a 1-day stand-up paddling trip). We manipulated the valence of descriptions provided by younger and older recommenders (e.g., "I felt safe" [positive] and "I did not enjoy it as I felt unsafe" [negative]). In Experiment 1, younger and older participants preferentially sought the experiences of others who were a similar age to themselves. These preferential tendencies led to age-related differences in risk-taking propensity due to exposure to the valence of descriptions of experiences provided by others. We also tested for differential weighting of social information according to recommender age in the recreational (Experiment 2a) and financial (Experiment 2b) domains. Of the two mechanisms examined, selective sampling of social information from same-age others, rather than differential sensitivity to social information, received the strongest support as a mechanism of age-related differences in risk-taking propensity. However, where differential sensitivity to social information occurred within domains, it suggested that younger and older adults draw on age-related stereotypes (e.g., related to physical abilities) to weigh the social information received from others. Together, our findings identify selective exposure to age-relevant social information as a mechanism through which social influence can contribute to age differences in risk-taking propensity.
Inaction inertia occurs when people are less likely to purchase a product after missing an opportunity to buy it at a substantially lower price. This study examines whether missing that prior opportunity is necessary for this effect to occur. Across three studies, a prior extremely (vs. slightly) low price reduced perceived value of consumable goods and increased anticipated regret, which in turn reduced subsequent purchase. This effect occurred regardless of prior purchase history. Furthermore, the negative impact on subsequent purchase was mitigated when the low price was due to a pricing error, as it alleviated the low price's impact on perceived value and anticipated regret, again independent of purchasing history. These findings provide converging evidence that the negative effect of a prior low price on subsequent purchase is driven primarily by the large price difference rather than inaction, and that inaction played a smaller role than previously assumed.
Mental accounting research exhibits how consumers' marketplace behaviors deviate from those predicted by the Standard Economic Theory. For example, research shows how money loses fungibility when people assign mental labels to their currency and make purchases consistent with such labels. Although the applications of mental accounting are well researched, we have limited understanding of how people construct their mental accounts. This research exhibits that people's mental horizon (broad vs. narrow), as defined by construal level, influences the nature of their mental accounting. Although consumers' mental accounts are narrowly defined at concrete construal, they construct superordinate mental accounts at abstract construal. Consequently, stronger (vs. weaker) mental labeling effects emerge at concrete (vs. abstract) levels of construal. Studies 1A-1C exhibit this phenomenon utilizing a field study and multiple studies applying various decision-making contexts. Studies 2a and 2b exhibit the underlying psychological process of this outcome that enhanced sense of situational control mediates this effect. Implications of these findings include divergence in cross-category effects of price promotions, spending of restricted use funds, and mental labeling of food containers across concrete and abstract thinking.
Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly supports human decision making by generating recommendations and structured evaluations. Yet how well an AI-supported decision aid works depends on more than algorithmic accuracy; the surrounding interface shapes how individuals read and act on the advice it delivers. This study asks how analytic structuring-presenting a decision problem through an explicit multi-criteria structure-relates to task-level psychological empowerment, self-reported trust regulation, and decision quality when people evaluate advice from an AI-framed decision aid. Drawing on behavioral decision research on advice taking and on trust in automation, we propose the analytic structuring-empowerment-trust (AET) framework. A scenario-based experiment used a 2 & times; 2 between-subjects design that manipulated analytic structuring (high AHP-based structuring vs. low structuring) and AI explanation transparency (high vs. low). Of 271 management students recruited at a Taiwanese university, 21 were excluded according to predefined screening rules, yielding a final sample of 250. Participants interacted with a scripted decision-support interface that presented a fixed, pre-programmed AI recommendation for an entrepreneurial decision task and responded to validated survey measures. The results fit the proposed framework: Analytic structuring was positively associated with psychological empowerment (beta = 0.37, p < 0.001), which in turn predicted perceived decision quality (beta = 0.46, p < 0.001). A bootstrapped analysis indicated a significant indirect effect of analytic structuring on decision quality through psychological empowerment (indirect effect = 0.17, 95% CI [0.11, 0.24]). Self-reported trust regulation positively moderated the relationship between empowerment and decision quality (beta = 0.19, p < 0.01), and analytic structuring was itself positively associated with trust regulation (beta = 0.33, p < 0.001). Because the decision aid was scripted and its reliability never varied, these findings concern how the structured presentation of algorithmic advice shapes users' experienced agency and their self-reported regulation of reliance, not behaviorally observed trust calibration. The contribution to behavioral decision research is the demonstration that how advice from an AI-framed aid is structured, and not merely whether its reasoning is made visible, relates to how individuals experience and evaluate the decision process, with design implications for interfaces that support user agency and reflective engagement with algorithmic advice.
We investigate whether people can sustainably manage a shared resource when they are allowed to change the rules themselves (i.e., endogenously). In two preregistered studies (Study 1: N = 460; Study 2: N = 580), participants played a Common Resource Game in groups of four over 10 rounds. Each player could extract a limited share of the resource, i.e., the maximum extraction level (MEL). We manipulated two factors. First, groups were either equal (all players had the same MEL of 25%) or unequal (two players had higher limits, 33%, the other two had lower limits, 17%). Second, some groups could suggest and vote on new extraction limits after each round, while others could not. Participants were thus randomly allocated to four between-subject conditions (2: Equal vs. Unequal MELs & times; 2: Voting vs. No Voting possibility), with an additional role distinction (high vs. low MEL players) within Unequal groups. Allowing groups to vote on new rules did not improve sustainable resource use. One reason might be that we observed limited use of the voting possibility. However, Unequal groups used the voting option more often than Equal groups. In these groups, players with lower MELs took action more often and did so earlier than those with higher MELs. Overall, although participants' suggestions seemed to strive to both increase sustainability and decrease inequality, they had little effect on actual resource use or profits. This suggests that allowing groups to change rules on their own may not be sufficient to ensure sustainable management of shared resources.
