Time pressure in risky decision-making: effect on risk defusing

In an experiment with 40 participants, the effect of time pressure on the search for risk defusing operators was investigated as the central research question. A risk defusing operator (RDO) is an action intended by the decision maker to be performed in addition to an otherwise attractive alternative and expected to decrease the risk. Examples in daily life are insurances or vaccinations. Decision-makers in experiments with quasi-realistic risky scenarios instead of gambles often search actively for RDOs. In the presented experiment, participants had to search for information they considered to be essential for reaching a decision. As expected, under time pressure search for information on RDOs and negative consequences increased, whereas search for positive consequences and probability decreased. Furthermore, the initially risky alternative was chosen more often under time pressure. As in other experiments on time pressure, the total amount of inspected information decreased.