Entropy-driven decision-making dynamics sheds light on the emergence of the "paradox of choice"

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Hauptverfasser: Gupta, Manish, Barua, Arnab, Hatzikirou, Haralampos
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Gupta, Manish
Barua, Arnab
Hatzikirou, Haralampos
author_facet Gupta, Manish
Barua, Arnab
Hatzikirou, Haralampos
contents Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action among multiple alternatives. As the decision maker belongs to a complex microenvironment (which contains multiple decision makers), has to make a decision where multiple options are present which often leads to a phenomenon known as the "paradox of choices". The latter refers to the case where too many options can lead to negative outcomes, such as increased uncertainty, decision paralysis, and frustration. Here, we employ an entropy driven mechanism within a statistical physics framework to explain the premises of the paradox. In turn, we focus on the emergence of a collective "paradox of choice", in the case of interacting decision-making agents, quantified as the decision synchronization time. Our findings reveal a trade-off between synchronization time and the sensing radius, indicating the optimal conditions for information transfer among group members, which significantly depends the individual sensitivity parameters. Interestingly, when agents sense their microenvironment in a biased way or their decisions are influenced by their past choices, then the collective "paradox of choice" does not occur. In a nutshell, our theory offers a low-dimensional and unified statistical explanation of the "paradox of choice" at the individual and at the collective level.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_16051
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Entropy-driven decision-making dynamics sheds light on the emergence of the "paradox of choice"
Gupta, Manish
Barua, Arnab
Hatzikirou, Haralampos
Physics and Society
Statistical Mechanics
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Biological Physics
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action among multiple alternatives. As the decision maker belongs to a complex microenvironment (which contains multiple decision makers), has to make a decision where multiple options are present which often leads to a phenomenon known as the "paradox of choices". The latter refers to the case where too many options can lead to negative outcomes, such as increased uncertainty, decision paralysis, and frustration. Here, we employ an entropy driven mechanism within a statistical physics framework to explain the premises of the paradox. In turn, we focus on the emergence of a collective "paradox of choice", in the case of interacting decision-making agents, quantified as the decision synchronization time. Our findings reveal a trade-off between synchronization time and the sensing radius, indicating the optimal conditions for information transfer among group members, which significantly depends the individual sensitivity parameters. Interestingly, when agents sense their microenvironment in a biased way or their decisions are influenced by their past choices, then the collective "paradox of choice" does not occur. In a nutshell, our theory offers a low-dimensional and unified statistical explanation of the "paradox of choice" at the individual and at the collective level.
title Entropy-driven decision-making dynamics sheds light on the emergence of the "paradox of choice"
topic Physics and Society
Statistical Mechanics
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Biological Physics
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.16051