The evil of banality: When choosing between the mundane feels like choosing between the worst.

ABSTRACT: Our most important decisions often provoke the greatest anxiety, whether we seek the better of two prizes or the lesser of two evils. Yet many of our choices are more mundane, such as selecting from a slate of mediocre but acceptable restaurants. Previous research suggests that choices of decreasing value should provoke decreasing anxiety. Here we show that this is not the case. Across three behavioral studies and one fMRI study, we find that anxiety and its neural correlates demonstrate a U-shaped function of choice set value, greatest when choosing between both the highest value and lowest value sets. Intermediate (moderate-value) choice sets provoke the least anxiety, even when they are just as difficult to select between as the choice sets at the two extremes. We show that these counte

SUBMITTER: Shenhav A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6342616 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature