Models of human decision-making aim to simultaneously explain the similarity, attraction, and compromise effects. However, evidence that people show all three effects within the same paradigm has come from studies in which choices were averaged over participants. This averaging is only justified if those participants show qualitatively similar choice behaviors. To investigate whether this was the case, we repeated two experiments previously run by Trueblood (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(5), 962-968, 2012) and Berkowitsch, Scheibehenne, and Rieskamp (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 143(3), 1331-1348, 2014). We found that individuals displayed qualitative differences in their choice behavior. In general, people did not simultaneously display all three context effects. Instead, we found a tendency for some people to show either the similarity effect or the compromise effect but not both. More importantly, many individuals showed strong dimensional biases that were much larger than any effects of context. This research highlights the dangers of averaging indiscriminately and the necessity for accounting for individual differences and dimensional biases in decision-making.

Punishment maximises the probability of our individual survival by reducing behaviours that cause us harm, and also sustains trust and fairness in groups essential for social cohesion. However, some individuals are more sensitive to punishment than others and these differences in punishment sensitivity have been linked to a variety of decision-making deficits and psychopathologies. The mechanisms for why individuals differ in punishment sensitivity are poorly understood, although recent studies of conditioned punishment in rodents highlight a key role for punishment contingency detection (Jean-Richard-Dit-Bressel et al., 2019). Here, we applied a novel ‘Planets and Pirates’ conditioned punishment task in humans, allowing us to identify the mechanisms for why individuals differ in their sensitivity to punishment. We show that punishment sensitivity is bimodally distributed in a large sample of normal participants. Sensitive and insensitive individuals equally liked reward and showed similar rates of reward-seeking. They also equally disliked punishment and did not differ in their valuation of cues that signalled punishment. However, sensitive and insensitive individuals differed profoundly in their capacity to detect and learn volitional control over aversive outcomes. Punishment insensitive individuals did not learn the instrumental contingencies, so they could not withhold behaviour that caused punishment and could not generate appropriately selective behaviours to prevent impending punishment. These differences in punishment sensitivity could not be explained by individual differences in behavioural inhibition, impulsivity, or anxiety. This bimodal punishment sensitivity and these deficits in instrumental contingency learning are identical to those dictating punishment sensitivity in non-human animals, suggesting that they are general properties of aversive learning and decision-making.

Proposed psychological mechanisms generating noninstrumental information seeking in humans can be broadly categorized into two competing accounts: the maximization of anticipating rewards versus an aversion to uncertainty. We compare three separate formalizations of these theories on their ability to track the dependency of information-seeking behavior on increasing levels of cue-outcome delay as well as their sensitivity to outcome valence. Across three experiments using a variety of different stimuli, we observe a flat to monotonically increasing pattern of delay dependency and minimal evidence of sensitivity to outcome valence--patterns which are better predicted, qualitatively and quantitatively, by an uncertainty aversion information model.

Individuals differ in their sensitivity to the adverse consequences of their actions, leading some to persist in maladaptive behaviors. Two pathways have been identified for this insensitivity: a motivational pathway based on excessive reward valuation and a behavioral pathway based on autonomous stimulus–response mechanisms. Here, we identify a third, cognitive pathway based on differences in punishment knowledge and use of that knowledge to suppress behavior. We show that distinct phenotypes of punishment sensitivity emerge from differences in what people learn about their actions. Exposed to identical punishment contingencies, some people (sensitive phenotype) form correct causal beliefs that they use to guide their behavior, successfully obtaining rewards and avoiding punishment, whereas others form incorrect but internally coherent causal beliefs that lead them to earn punishment they do not like. Incorrect causal beliefs were not inherently problematic because we show that many individuals benefit from information about why they are being punished, revaluing their actions and changing their behavior to avoid further punishment (unaware phenotype). However, one condition where incorrect causal beliefs were problematic was when punishment is infrequent. Under this condition, more individuals show punishment insensitivity and detrimental patterns of behavior that resist experience and information-driven updating, even when punishment is severe (compulsive phenotype). For these individuals, rare punishment acted as a “trap,” inoculating maladaptive behavioral preferences against cognitive and behavioral updating.

Individuals differ in sensitivity to the adverse consequences of their actions, leading some to persist in maladaptive behaviours. Two pathways have been identified for this insensitivity: a motivational pathway based on reward valuation and a behavioural pathway based on stimulus–response mechanisms. Here we identify a third, cognitive pathway based on differences in punishment knowledge. Exposed to identical punishment contingencies, some people (Sensitive) form correct causal beliefs that guide their behaviour to avoid punishment, whereas others form incorrect causal beliefs that lead them to earn punishment. Incorrect causal beliefs were not inherently problematic, many individuals benefited from information about why punishment was occurring, revaluing their actions and changing their behaviour (Unaware). However, we identify one condition where incorrect causal beliefs can be problematic: when punishment is infrequent. Under this condition, more individuals showed detrimental patterns of behaviour that resisted information-driven updating (Compulsive). For these individuals, rare punishment inoculated behavioural preferences against cognitive and behavioural updating.