New publication in „Nature Human Behaviour“

14 June 2024, by Ugur Turhan

Sophie Bavard published the article "Comparing experience- and description-based economic preferences across 11 countries" in "Nature Human Behaviour".

How does reinforcement learning shape economic preferences? The authors sampled economic preferences in 11 countries through several decision-making tasks: option values were either disclosed overtly, or learned through reinforcement learning. Results show that risk and cultural differences conditioned preferences when values were disclosed, but not when learned through trial-and-error. This study suggests that our cultural background may play a huge role in determining our behavior, or absolutely none at all, depending on whether information on value is being acquired by description or by experience.

Link