The impassable gap between experiential and symbolic values

Basile Garcia, Mael Lebreton, Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde and Stefano Palminteri
Additional contact information
Basile Garcia: ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres
Stefano Palminteri: ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: To choose between options of different natures, standard decision models presume that a single representational system ultimately indexes their subjective value on a common scale, regardless of how they are constructed. To challenge this assumption, we systematically investigated hybrid decisions between experiential options, whose value is built from past outcomes experience, and symbolic options which describe probabilistic outcomes. We show that participants' choices exhibited a pattern consistent with a systematic neglect of the experiential values. This normatively irrational decision strategy held after accounting for alternative explanations, and persisted when it bore an economics cost. Overall, our results demonstrate that experiential and symbolic values are not symmetrically considered in hybrid decisions, suggesting that they are not commensurable and recruit different representational systems which may be assigned different priority levels in the decision process. These findings challenge the dominant models commonly used in value-based decision-making research.

Date: 2022-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, ⟨10.21203/rs.3.rs-1361189/v1⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: The impassable gap between experiential and symbolic values (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04409214

DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-1361189/v1

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().