Better early than never: The relative impact of described and experienced information in risky decisions

When making risky decisions, people can learn about their options through twoinformation formats: descriptive summaries or personal experience. In threeexperiments (N=1037), we investigated choices when both description and experienceare available (‘description-plus-experience’), evaluating the effect of the order in whichinformation is presented, in comparison to experience or description alone. Participantslearned about their options via description, experience, or both. Results showed thatboth sources of information were used when they were both available. The order offormat presentation influenced decisions, with descriptions more influential whendescriptions were presented before experience than when experience precededdescriptions. In addition, observing rare events during sampling did not influencebehaviour when descriptions preceded experience. This research demonstrates thatexperience is consequential even when – in principle – it provides no new informationabout choice options, and illustrates how the timing of descriptive information (e.g.,early warnings) is crucial for maximum behavioural impact.