The “status quo bias” in Response to External Feedback in Decision-Makers

Objectives

Decision-making is often driven and guided by the evaluation of action effects and external cues on action outcomes, which are essential to optimize behavior in an adaptive manner. This work aimed at investigating decision-makers’ sensitivity to external cues (including positive and negative reinforcement) and their flexibility in using feedback to decide whether to stay or change the course of their choices. We also explored the neurofunctional correlates of individuals’ ability to re-assess their decisions in response to feedback, and its possible association with general decision-making styles.

Methods

A realistic decision-making task set in a professional context was devised and administered in addition to the General Decision Making Style (GDMS) inventory. During the task, neurofunctional correlates of affective regulation, cognitive engagement, and information-processing load were non-invasively measured via wearable EEG.

Results

Participants showed a tendency to maintain their decisions following positive reinforcement, or when no explicit feedback was provided. Surprisingly, some of them tended to stay with their decisions also following negative feedback. We observed lower cognitive effort, as marked by lower prefrontal beta power, following positive feedback. Finally, we reported negative correlations between GDMS Dependent style scores and task scores in the positive feedback and no-feedback conditions, along with a positive correlation between GDMS Spontaneous style scores and task scores in the no-feedback condition.

Conclusions

Our findings have implications for understanding adaptive and maladaptive decision-making in contexts in which feedback serves as a compass to orient one’s own performance and prevent the so-called cognitive inertia.