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Poster C in Poster Session C: Wednesday, August 5, 9:30 – 11:15 am, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Planning as a Cognitive Cost that Discourages Goal Switching

Luke Cho¹, J. Branson Byers¹, Yael Niv¹; ¹Princeton University

Presenter: Luke Cho

People exhibit a striking preference for maintaining their current goals even when better alternatives are readily available. While this bias can be framed as irrational (e.g., the sunk cost fallacy), goal persistence may be adaptive for conserving cognitive resources. We hypothesized that some of this persistence is attributable to the the cost of planning that comes with switching between goals. We conducted a behavioral experiment (n=60) in which participants pursued goals under two conditions: one in which they had to plan towards goals before pursuing them and another in which they were given the optimal plan. We found that people persisted with their goals more when they had to create their own plans. We quantified the cognitive costs of planning with behavioral modeling as a function of decreased goal switching. These results indicate that people are sensitive to the act of planning, and suggest that goal persistence may be an adaptive response to these cognitive costs.

Topic Area: Decision-Making, Cognitive Control & Event Cognition