Imagining risk taking: The valence of mental imagery is related to the declared willingness to take risky actions

Abstract

The aim of the present research was to investigate the involvement of mental imagery in people's choices under risk. We tested the general idea that decision makers can use visual mental images (visual mental simulations) to pre-experience how rewarding or threatening future outcomes of risky behavior will be and try out the potential consequences of their risky activities. The paper reports the results of three preregistered studies (including one experiment) showing that the valence of mental imagery is related to the willingness to take risky actions and that people spontaneously use mental imagery as an informative decision input. In Study 1, we found that the more positive mental images people produced when faced with risk, the more willing they were to take risky actions representing different risk domains. Study 2 extended the results of Study 1, indicating that the valence of mental imagery has a causal effect on participants' risk taking willingness. Qualitative analysis based on independent judges' evaluations conducted in Studies 1 and 2 documented that, when requested, participants could easily generate visual mental images illustrating the consequences of their risky choices. Finally, with Study 3, we found that participants declared using mental imagery as a decision input (i.e., a source of information that helps them make choices) even when they were not instructed to do so. However, the frequency of reporting images as decision inputs differed across risky activities.