Summary: Why do we often stick to the “tried and tested” even when a better option is staring us in the face? A large-scale study suggests that our brains are far more influenced by pure repetition than by the actual value of an outcome.
After analyzing 15 datasets involving over 700 participants, researchers found that we don’t necessarily store the specific “worth” of an option; instead, we build a mental bias simply by repeating an action. This habit-like repetition acts as a cognitive shortcut, leading us to “irrationally” prefer certain choices in new contexts, regardless of whether they remain the best alternative.
Key Facts
- The Repetition Bias: People tend to repeat previous decisions not because they have calculated them to be better, but simply because they have made that choice frequently in the past.
- Context Transfer: These “irrational” preferences persist even when the decision-making environment changes or when equivalent (or superior) new options are introduced.
- Valuation Illusion: The study found that options chosen more frequently were not only preferred later but were also retroactively rated as better by the participants.
- Beyond Rationality: Many behaviors previously labeled as “illogical” are actually the result of the brain favoring a mental shortcut (action repetition) over a complex cost-benefit analysis.
- Large-Scale Evidence: The findings were validated across nine new experiments and six previously published datasets, confirming a robust psychological pattern.
Source: TUD
Why do people often make decisions in the same pattern and choose the tried and tested, even when there are apparently better alternatives?
A research team led by Stefan Kiebel, Professor of Cognitive Computational Neuroscience at TUD, investigated this question in a large-scale study.
To this end, the team examined nine newly collected decision-making tasks and six previously published data sets with a total of over 700 participants to determine how people initially learn values in clearly defined decision-making contexts and which of these learned options they subsequently prefer in newly combined contexts.
“Our study shows that many ‘irrational’ preferences do not necessarily arise primarily from people storing values relative to other values, but rather from the fact that people tend to repeat actions they once preferred in a particular context.
“This pure repetition can later lead to a particular option still being preferred in new contexts or environments, even if there are equivalent or even better alternatives,” explains lead author Dr Ben Wagner.
The researchers were thus able to prove that people tend to repeat decisions they have already made, regardless of whether these still make sense in the new moment. The decisive factor here is not weighing up the pros and cons, but remembering previous actions. This acts as a mental shortcut and influences the next choice.
“The surprising thing was how strongly repetition alone can change preferences,” explains Wagner. “Options that were chosen more frequently were not only preferred, but also rated as better.”
The results help to better understand seemingly illogical behavior in everyday life, for example in shopping decisions, habits or recurring routines.
At the same time, the study provides new starting points for describing decision-making processes more realistically, for example in psychology, behavioral research or in the design of decision-making environments.
Key Questions Answered:
A: Exactly. Your brain isn’t necessarily telling you the coffee is better; it’s telling you that “this is the action we always perform.” Over time, your brain justifies this repetition by convincing you the coffee is higher quality, even if it’s not.
A: It’s difficult because these shortcuts are designed to save brain energy. To break the cycle, you have to consciously force a “stop-and-think” moment to override the automatic preference for the familiar.
A: If a company can get you to make a choice just a few times, they’ve already won half the battle. This research shows that once a choice becomes a repeated action, the actual price or quality of a competitor matters much less to your brain.
Editorial Notes:
- This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
- Journal paper reviewed in full.
- Additional context added by our staff.
About this decision-making and neuroscience research news
Author: Nicole Gierig
Source: TUD
Contact: Nicole Gierig – TUD
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Action repetition biases choice in context-dependent decision-making” by Ben J. Wagner, H. Benedikt Wolf & Stefan J. Kiebel. Communications Psychology
DOI:10.1038/s44271-025-00363-x
Abstract
Action repetition biases choice in context-dependent decision-making
Humans are prone to decision biases, which make behavior seemingly irrational. An important cause for decision biases is that the context in which decisions are made can later influence which choices humans prefer in new situations.
Current computational models (e.g. relative value learning or range normalization) often require extensive environmental knowledge to explain these biases.
Here, we tested the hypothesis that decision biases are mainly driven by a tendency to repeat context-specific actions.
We implemented a series of nine value-based decision-making tasks on n = 351 male and female participants and reanalyzed six previously published datasets (n = 350 participants).
We found that higher within-context repetition of an option was associated with biased choices including higher subjective valuation and lower uncertainty for repeated actions.
Next, we used a hierarchical Bayesian reinforcement learning model based on two basic principles, learning by reward and action repetition and tested it on all datasets.
Our results show that the combination of these two basic principles is sufficient to explain biased choices in stable environments.
We demonstrate via extensive model comparison that our model outperforms all tested alternatives (implementations of value normalization and a goal centric account).
These results provide insights into decision biases during value-based decision-making and suggest a parsimonious mechanism for understanding habit-like choice tendencies.
