Understanding human behavior from the perspective of normative and descriptive theories depends on human agents having stable and coherent decision-making preferences. Both utility theory (expected rational behavior; von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1947) and prospect theory, with its certainty equivalent (CE) method (expected irrational behavior; Tversky & Kahneman, 1992), assume stable behavioral patterns of risk preferences. In contrast, our research pursues the opposite proposal: Human preferences (rational or irrational) are not stable; variations in the decision context during risk elicitation determine people's preferences even when the utilities of choice options are available. Accordingly, we found evidence that decision makers reverse their risk preferences between CE tasks with logarithmically spaced certainty (unequal number of risk-averse and risk-seeking sure options) and linearly spaced certainty (equal number of risk-averse and risk-seeking sure options). The results revealed that the effect of probability range (low and high) on preferences, predicted by prospect theory, is an artifact of the logarithmically spaced sure options. When the sure options were linearly spaced, the probability range no longer influenced risk preferences, indicating a preference reversal between decision tasks. Our findings highlight a need to investigate how the predictions of descriptive decision-making theories are shaped by their risk elicitation methods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Making morally sensitive decisions and evaluations pervade many human everyday activities. Philosophers, economists, psychologists and behavioural scientists researching such decision-making typically explore the principles, processes and predictors that constitute human moral decision-making. Crucially, very little research has explored the theoretical and methodological development (supported by empirical evidence) of utilitarian theories of moral decision-making. Accordingly, in this critical review article, we invite the reader on a moral journey from Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism to the veil of ignorance reasoning, via a recent theoretical proposal emphasising utilitarian moral behaviour—perspective-taking accessibility (PT accessibility). PT accessibility research revealed that providing participants with access to all situational perspectives in moral scenarios, eliminates (previously reported in the literature) inconsistency between their moral judgements and choices. Moreover, in contrast to any previous theoretical and methodological accounts, moral scenarios/tasks with full PT accessibility provide the participants with unbiased even odds (neither risk averse nor risk seeking) and impartiality. We conclude that the proposed by Martin et al. PT Accessibility (a new type of veil of ignorance with even odds that do not trigger self-interest, risk related preferences or decision biases) is necessary in order to measure humans’ prosocial utilitarian behaviour and promote its societal benefits.

Problem gambling is a gambling disorder often described as continued gambling in the face of increasing losses. In this article, we explored problem gambling behaviour and its psychological determinants. We considered the assumption of stability in risky preferences, anticipated by both normative and descriptive theories of decision making, as well as recent evidence that risk preferences are in fact ‘constructed on the fly’ during risk elicitation. Accordingly, we argue that problem gambling is a multifaceted disorder, which is ‘fueled on the fly’ by a wide range of contextual and non-contextual influences, including individual differences in personality traits, hormonal and emotional activations. We have proposed that the experience of gambling behaviour in itself is a dynamic experience of events in time series, where gamblers anchor on the most recent event—typically a small loss or rare win. This is a highly adaptive, but erroneous, decision-making mechanism, where anchoring on the most recent event alters the psychological representations of substantial and accumulated loss in the past to a representation of negligible loss. In other words, people feel better while they gamble. We conclude that problem gambling researchers and policy makers will need to employ multifaceted and holistic approaches to understand problem gambling.

Intertemporal choices are very prevalent in daily life, ranging from simple, mundane decisions to highly consequential decisions. In this context, thinking about the future and making sound decisions are crucial to promoting mental and physical health, as well as a financially sustainable lifestyle. In the present study, we set out to investigate some of the possible underlying mechanisms, such as cognitive factors and emotional states, that promote future-oriented decisions. In a cross-sectional experimental study, we used a gain and a loss version of an intertemporal monetary choices task. Our main behavioural result indicated that people are substantially more impulsive over smaller and sooner monetary losses compared to equivalent gains. In addition, for both decisional domains, significant individual difference predictors emerged, indicating that intertemporal choices are sensitive to the affective and cognitive parameters. By focusing on the cognitive and emotional individual factors that influence impulsive decisions, our study could constitute a building block for successful future intervention programs targeted at mental and physical health issues, including gambling behaviour.