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The Role of Impulses in Shaping Decisions

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  • Judith Avrahami
  • Yaakov Kareev
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    Abstract

    This article explores the extent to which decision behavior is shaped by short-lived reactions to the outcome of the most recent decision. We inspected repeated decision-making behavior in two versions of each of two decision-making tasks, an individual task and a strategic one. By regressing behavior onto the outcomes of recent decisions, we found that the upcoming decision was well predicted by the most recent outcome alone, with the tendency to repeat a previous action being affected both by its actual outcome and by the outcomes of actions not taken. Because the goodness of predictions based on the most recent outcome did not diminish as participants gained experience with the task, we conclude that repeated decisions are continuously affected by impulsive reactions.

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    File URL: http://ratio.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/publications/dp552.pdf
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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by The Center for the Study of Rationality, Hebrew University, Jerusalem in its series Discussion Paper Series with number dp552.

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    Length: 22 pages
    Date of creation: May 2010
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:huj:dispap:dp552

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