Experimental Design Details
In Section 1, there are two blocks, A and B, each consists of 20 decision problems representing a set of portfolio options associated with two equally probable unknown states. This is the most common design in studying decisions under risk (e.g. Choi et al., 2014; Carvalho et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2018). There are three treatment groups: direct decision-making, sequential elimination and process selection. Participant firstly complete Block A without knowing that Block B consists of the same decision problems as BlockA. In Block B, participants in the direct decision-making group are presented with their Block A choices and can make different choices. Participants in the sequential elimination group are presented with their Part A sequence of eliminated alternatives) and can eliminate alternatives differently. In the end, every participant is asked to only one of Block A and B for payment. Then the computer randomly chooses one round from the 20 rounds from the chosen block with equal probability. The participant will get rewarded depending on the outcome of this chosen round.
In Section 2, The ICAR consists of 12 questions about verbal reasoning, letter and number series, matrix reasoning, and three-dimensional rotation (Condon and Revelle, 2014). The CRT measures one’s ability to suppress an intuitive and spontaneous incorrect answer and instead to give the deliberative and reflective correct answer (Frederick 2005). The SCWT and the Sternberg task are standard tests in psychology to measure selective attentions and working memory capacity, respectively.
In Section 3, participants will have to imagine themselves in two sets of hypothetical scenarios and answer a few questions related to the scenarios. First, we present them with two inconsistent choices known as "attraction effects" and ask how comfortable they are. Second, we ask them to make a choice between two hypothetical options: 1) You went on a great vacation, but you remember nothing about the experience. There are no photos or videos left from your vacation and 2) You did not go on vacation. Therefore, you have no memories of it, but there are photos and videos of you having a great vacation.