Does a bias toward the present influence exploratory choice?

Time is a central aspect of exploratory choice. People must balance the immediate rewards of exploiting known alternatives against the long-term rewards of exploring uncertain alternatives. However, little research has investigated how this temporal aspect affects the exploratory decisions people make. In other intertemporal choices, people display a bias towards immediate rewards. We hypothesize that in exploratory choice, this present bias will cause them to under-explore. Across three experiments, including a preregistered design, we find no evidence that present bias influences exploratory choice, but also conclude that our stimuli may not effectively induce present bias. We discuss how present bias might better be investigated, and possible reasons that present bias may not affect exploratory choice. Keywords: exploration, decision making, intertemporal choice, present bias
Decision makers acting in uncertain environments frequently face the dilemma between choosing options known to be rewarding (i.e., exploitation) and choosing options that are unknown or uncertain (i.e., exploration). A [...]