UCSD - University of California - San Diego

05/26/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 05/26/2026 10:19

Risk or Reward: What’s the First Thing People Want to Know When a Decision Is Uncertain

Published Date

May 26, 2026

Article Content

From online shopping to AI-powered recommendations, people increasingly make decisions in environments where they can shape - or are guided through - the order in which they encounter information.

Uma Karmarkar, a behavioral scientist and neuroeconomist at the University of California San Diego with appointments at both the Rady School of Management and the School of Global Policy and Strategy, studies how people approach everyday choices involving uncertainty and risk.

In a new paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Karmarkar and colleagues asked a deceptively simple question: When people face an uncertain opportunity, what information do they want to see first - the potential reward, or the odds of getting it?

Across 11 preregistered experiments involving more than 6,700 participants, the researchers found that a majority of people consistently preferred to see risk information before rewards. But they also found something more consequential: Seeing the risks first often made people more skeptical and more likely to disengage from the decision before seeing all the information.

What's the first thing people want to know when a decision is uncertain?

"Based on our research, it seems people are looking for information that helps them reduce feelings of uncertainty before investing in a possible outcome.

In our experiments, people chose what they wanted to see first - potential rewards or the likelihood of receiving them. For example, participants in some experiments saw a digital "scratch-off" lottery ticket and decided whether they wanted to first see how much they could win, or the probability they would win. We also tested preferences for likelihood vs. rewards in situations like booking a hotel room. In that case, people could prioritize learning about room availability (likelihood) or room amenities (rewards) first.

Across these types of decisions we found a consistent pattern. Roughly 60 to 70% of people wanted to know the risk information first.

This preference was stronger among people who were more ambiguity averse - that is, more sensitive to imprecisely defined uncertainty - rather than simply people who preferred structure or closure in general.

This wasn't limited to an information preference, it also shaped behavior. When people saw the risk information first, they were less likely to spend money or buy the lottery ticket. In fact, seeing risk first sometimes made people more likely to walk away before even finding out about the rewards.

Our findings highlight that there might be a tension between what people want to know about uncertain opportunities and what companies and platforms often emphasize. Showing the most appealing aspects or "rewards" first may encourage engagement, but we find a lot of consumers look for information that helps them assess uncertainty and decide whether to proceed at all."

Read the paper: "Sequential Information Preferences in Uncertain Decision Making."

Uma Karmarkar, Rady School of Management and School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego.
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