Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Decision making research typically focuses on choices between predetermined sets of options. In many real-world de-cisions, however, individuals must generate potential courses of action themselves. Individual differences in processesinvolved in option generation therefore influence which actions are considered. We examined the role of one such fac-tor: the propensity to take risks. We hypothesized that risk-taking propensity would be related to the generation of morerisky actions associated with uncertain or unfavorable outcomes. Participants generated options in ill-structured situationsand rated the perceived risk associated with each option. As predicted, higher risk-taking propensity was associated withincreased generation of risky options that could lead to unfavorable outcomes. The riskiness of generated options wasalso related to affective state, consistent with prior evidence of emotional influences on risky decision making. The find-ings suggest that both real-life risk-taking and risky option generation arise from common cognitive processes involved inresponding to uncertainty.