What is it about?
Do researchers study the same risky choices that people consider relevant in their lives? And are these choice influenced by the same psychological mechanisms? We found that only very few risky choices that people report facing in daily life are studied in the behavioral sciences in a systematic way. Moreover, the psychological mechanisms that are considered relevant for the choices that laypeople make largely differ from the mechanisms that are considered relevant for the choices that researchers investigate. This has consequences for the generalizability of findings based on typical researcher-generated choices, as they may not account for the factors that drive people's decisions in real life.
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Why is it important?
Life is dynamic and fast-moving, and we cannot take for granted that the risky choices researchers have been studying in the past decades are representative for those that people face in today's world. As such, it is important to periodically take stock of common research practices to thereby find opportunities for future research to broaden its scope in the risky choices it examines.
Perspectives
This project was a particularly stimulating one as the meta-scientific approach we took allowed me to better understand and appreciate existing research practices on real-life risky choices. At the same time, it also provided an empirical basis on which to challenge these practices and consider ways to update the measurement instruments used to study decision making.
Olivia Fischer
Universitat Zurich
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Laypeople’s and researchers’ perspectives on real-life risky choices: A comparative analysis of overlaps and discrepancies., Decision, January 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/dec0000268.
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