Rivals in the dark: How competition influences search in decisions under uncertainty

Phillips, Nathaniel D.; Hertwig, Ralph; Kareev, Yaakov; Avrahami, Judith

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2014.06.006

Cited by 28 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Second, several recent studies have shown that adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behavior when in the company of friends and peers than when alone65. A better understanding of how social context and peer pressure shapes individual approaches to ambiguity or uncertainty is therefore also important (e.g., competition has been shown to drastically curtail exploratory search66). Third, developmental differences in learning from feedback have been documented296768.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescents display distinctive tolerance to ambiguity and to uncertainty during risky decision making

Bos

Hertwig

2017

Sci Rep

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143

149

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Although actuarial data indicate that risk-taking behavior peaks in adolescence, laboratory evidence for this developmental spike remains scarce. One possible explanation for this incongruity is that in the real world adolescents often have only vague information about the potential consequences of their behavior and the likelihoods of those consequences, whereas in the lab these are often clearly stated. How do adolescents behave under such more realistic conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty? We asked 105 participants aged from 8 to 22 years to make three types of choices: (1) choices between options whose possible outcomes and probabilities were fully described (choices under risk); (2) choices between options whose possible outcomes were described but whose probability information was incomplete (choices under ambiguity), and (3) choices between unknown options whose possible outcomes and probabilities could be explored (choices under uncertainty). Relative to children and adults, two adolescent-specific markers emerged. First, adolescents were more accepting of ambiguity; second, they were also more accepting of uncertainty (as indicated by shorter pre-decisional search). Furthermore, this tolerance of the unknown was associated with motivational, but not cognitive, factors. These findings offer novel insights into the psychology of adolescent risk taking.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescents display distinctive tolerance to ambiguity and to uncertainty during risky decision making

Bos

Hertwig

2017

Sci Rep

Self Cite

143

149

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show abstract

“…Exploration is less costly in non-competitive environments than in competitive environments; e.g., during mate choice in fish (Lindstrom & Lehtonen, 2013) and humans (Todd, 2007;Goldstone, Ashpole, & Roberts, 2005). The presence of competitors reduces information search in the "sampling paradigm" (Phillips et al, 2014). Exploration might be especially useful in competitive environments because it can help the agent to find a "niche" where he is better adapted than his competitors (Cohen et al, 2007;Schulze et al, in press).…”

Section: Factormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social factors of exploration/exploitation tradeoffs are often overlooked in the human decision making literature (for recent exceptions, see Goldstone, Ashpole, & Roberts, 2005;Phillips, Hertwig, Kareev, & Avrahami, 2014;Schulze, van Ravenzwaaij, & Newell, in press). In natural settings, however, agents rarely act in isolation from others, and exploration-exploitation tradeoffs can be different when considered at the group level than when considered for the individual agent.…”

Section: Social Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking the exploration–exploitation tradeoff: A synthesis of human and animal literatures.

Mehlhorn¹,

Newell²,

Todd³

et al. 2015

Decision

326

318

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Many decisions in the lives of animals and humans require a fine balance between the exploration of different options and the exploitation of their rewards. Do you buy the advertised car, or do you testdrive different models? Do you continue feeding from the current patch of flowers, or do you fly off to another one? Do you marry your current partner, or try your luck with someone else? The balance required in these situations is commonly referred to as the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. It features prominently in a wide range of research traditions, including learning, foraging, and decisionmaking literatures. Here, we integrate findings from these and other often-isolated literatures in order to gain a better understanding of the possible tradeoffs between exploration and exploitation, and we propose new theoretical insights that might guide future research. Specifically, we explore how potential tradeoffs depend on (1) the conceptualization of exploration and exploitation; (2) the influencing environmental, social, and individual factors; (3) the scale at which exploration and exploitation are considered; (4) the relationship and types of transitions between the two behaviors; and (5) the goals of the decision maker. We conclude that exploration and exploitation are best conceptualized as points on a continuum, and that the extent to which an agent's behavior can be interpreted as exploratory or exploitative depends upon the level of abstraction at which it is considered.

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“…Exploration may increase as norms become less valid as predictors of behavior-for example, when injunctive and descriptive norms (Cialdini et al, 1991) conflict; when conflicting injunctive norms imply opposite behaviors; or when a social domain is not (yet) governed by norms. Yet exploration may decrease further under competition (Phillips, Hertwig, Kareev, & Avrahami, 2014). In turn, nonsocial worlds can also offer environmental regularities (Pleskac & Hertwig, 2014) that may substitute for search.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not All Uncertainty Is Treated Equally: Information Search Under Social and Nonsocial Uncertainty

Fleischhut¹,

Artinger²,

Olschewski³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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The social world is often portrayed as being less predictable and more uncertain than the nonsocial world. We argue that if cognitive tools such as social projection and norm-based expectation can be used to predict others’ behavior, social uncertainty may nevertheless trigger less search than nonsocial uncertainty. In support of this thesis, we found in two experiments that people engaged in considerably less search in a variant of the ultimatum game than in structurally identical lotteries. Even raising the stakes boosted search only in lotteries but not in the social game. Further differences in actual and anticipated search under social and nonsocial uncertainty indicate that people are aware of norm-based regularities in social worlds and that they exploit those regularities to guide their expectations. The findings highlight that the structure of social environments can afford the application of simple cognitive tools to navigate uncertainty without extensive search.

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Rivals in the dark: How competition influences search in decisions under uncertainty

Cited by 28 publications

References 22 publications

Adolescents display distinctive tolerance to ambiguity and to uncertainty during risky decision making

Adolescents display distinctive tolerance to ambiguity and to uncertainty during risky decision making

Unpacking the exploration–exploitation tradeoff: A synthesis of human and animal literatures.

Not All Uncertainty Is Treated Equally: Information Search Under Social and Nonsocial Uncertainty

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