Choice seeking is motivated by the intrinsic need for personal control

Abstract

Abstract When deciding between options that do or do not lead to future choices, humans often choose to choose. We studied choice seeking by asking subjects to decide between a choice opportunity or performing a computer-selected action. Subjects preferred choice when these options were equally rewarded, even deterministically, and were willing to trade extrinsic rewards for the opportunity to choose. We explained individual variability in choice seeking using reinforcement learning models incorporating risk sensitivity and overvaluation of rewards obtained through choice. Degrading perceived controllability diminished choice preference, although willingness to repeat selection of choice opportunities remained unchanged. In choices following these repeats, subjects were sensitive to rewards following freely chosen actions, but ignored environmental information in a manner consistent with a desire to maintain personal control. Choice seeking appears to reflect the intrinsic need for personal control, which competes with extrinsic reward properties and external information to motivate behavior. Author summary Human decisions can often be explained by the balancing of potential rewards and punishments. However, some research suggests that humans also prefer opportunities to choose, even when these have no impact on future rewards or punishments. Thus, opportunities to choose may be intrinsically motivating, although this has never been experimentally tested against alternative explanations such as cognitive dissonance or exploration. We conducted behavioral experiments and used computational modelling to provide compelling evidence that choice opportunities are indeed intrinsically rewarding. Moreover, we found that human choice preference varied according to individual risk attitudes, and expressed a need for personal control that competes with maximizing reward intake.

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