Life is marked by many choices. The most trivial ones, like the one we do every morning to get dressed, to the most Cornelian, we are constantly obliged to make a decision. But what happens in our brain when we make a decision? While this reflection mechanism is the subject of numerous studies, Inserm and ENS-PSL, in partnership with institutes around the world, have looked into the role played by the socio-cultural context in decision-making.
According to researchers from Inserm and ENS-PSL, the situational context, which is similar to the sociocultural context, can “push participants to make decisions that appear irrational”. On the other hand, choices based on learning would be more important in making a decision. Their results are published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
Decision making: naturally, we try to limit our suffering
What happens when you make a decision? Inserm researchers explain in a press release that, when faced with a choice, the brain calls on its previous experiences, stored in his memory. “These experiences are materialized by a ‘value’ attributed by the brain to each choice that has been made previously (we speak of ‘subjective value’, or ‘reward value’). they write.
Certain factors can influence the memory of these previous experiences. Researchers note that being in a similar context, such as being in the same place, can help make the memory more vivid. Experts call this situational context.
If when making a choice, we tend to naturally turn to the one that brings us the most pleasure and best limits our suffering, researchers have noticed that this is not always the case. Indeed, in certain cases, the situational context would push “people to make choices that might a priori seem less ‘optimal’ than others”. The researchers therefore wanted to know what factors could influence this decision-making. They focused on learning and cultural factors.
A study carried out in 11 countries around the world
To do this, they based themselves on a panel of 623 participants spread across 11 countries. “presenting great differences in socio-cultural and economic context”, such as Iran, Russia, Japan, India, France and the United States. Participants had to undergo two tests to evaluate their choices. The first test was divided into two stages: a learning stage, where participants had to make choices and obtain a detailed analysis of the results of these choices, and a learning application stage, where participants had to make choice without having feedback on experience, but taking into account the analysis of the first results.
The second test took place in a similar context to the first, but this time was based on description. Participants had to make decisions by having descriptions of these choices.
“This second step had a dual objective: to assess whether decision-making behaviors were similar from one country to another and to compare between these countries the differences between decision-making based on experience and that based on description. ”specify the researchers.
Learning would be more important than sociocultural factors in making a decision
In the press release, the researchers note that this work “question the hypothesis according to which decision-making processes are strongly influenced by cultural factors”. “They suggest on the contrary that the contextual biases of reinforcement learning are a constant cognitive characteristic common to a large part of humanity” specifies the researchers.
Additionally, the researchers note that “in the second test, preferences and decisions based on past experience appear more similar across cultures than those based on descriptions or instructions”. According to them, these results can open up new research to better understand choices in economics, psychology or even public policy.
Sources :
- What role does the sociocultural context play in decision-making? – National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) press release
- Comparing experience- and description-based economic preferences across 11 countries – Nature Human Behaviour
