Approval of a DFG Research Grant on Search Dynamics in Complex Decisions

As humans, we have remarkable abilities to adjust our behavior to new challenges and situations. For example, we often need to master new technologies like smartphones or the internet. These abilities change throughout life, from childhood to young adulthood and older age.

This study explores how...

In this paper, we show that increasing the value of an inferior option makes two superior ones look less valuable. Interestingly we show that this distortion emerges as participants learn the rewards of options and persists in later choices, even in choice-sets that omit the inferior option...