Summary: Why do we often stick with the “tried and tested” even when a clearly better option is available? A large-scale study suggests that repetition itself—rather than an objective evaluation of outcomes—strongly shapes our preferences.
Researchers analyzed 15 datasets from more than 700 participants and found that people do not always store the intrinsic value of an option. Instead, repeated actions create a mental bias: the simple act of choosing the same option again and again becomes a shortcut that skews later choices, even in new contexts where a different option might be superior.
Key Facts
- The Repetition Bias: Individuals tend to repeat past choices not necessarily because they have evaluated them as better, but because those choices were made frequently before.
- Context Transfer: These repetition-driven preferences carry over to new decision environments, persisting even when equivalent or better alternatives appear.
- Valuation Illusion: Options selected more often are later perceived as higher quality and are rated more favorably by participants, despite no objective improvement.
- Beyond Rationality: Many behaviors labeled as “irrational” can be explained by the brain favoring a low-effort strategy—action repetition—over more demanding cost-benefit calculations.
- Robust Evidence: The pattern was validated across nine newly conducted experiments and six previously published datasets, making the effect statistically robust and generalizable.
Source: TUD
Why do people tend to repeat familiar choices even when better alternatives appear?
A research team led by Stefan Kiebel, Professor of Cognitive Computational Neuroscience at TU Dresden (TUD), examined this question through a comprehensive study. The team combined nine newly conducted decision-making tasks with reanalyses of six existing datasets to investigate how people learn values in specific decision contexts and which learned options they later prefer when contexts change.
Across more than 700 participants, the researchers observed a consistent pattern: people often repeat actions they previously performed, and this repetition can shape future preferences independently of the objective value associated with those actions. In other words, memory of past actions—not always careful weighing of pros and cons—serves as the key driver for subsequent choices.
Lead author Dr. Ben Wagner explains that pure repetition creates a cognitive bias strong enough to change preference judgments. Options chosen more frequently during training phases were not only selected more often in later tests, but participants also rated those options as better and felt more certain about them. This suggests repetition alters both choice behavior and subjective valuation.
These findings clarify everyday phenomena such as brand loyalty in shopping, habitual routines, and recurring decisions. They also have practical implications for designing choice environments—whether in retail, apps, or services—because creating opportunities for repeated actions early on can lock in preferences that outlast objective differences in quality or price.
Key Questions Answered:
A: Yes. Repetition creates a familiarity that your brain interprets as the default action. Over time, that familiarity can be converted into perceived higher quality, even if an objectively better option is available.
A: It is possible but requires conscious effort. Because repetition saves mental effort, breaking the pattern means intentionally pausing and evaluating alternatives to override automatic behavior.
A: Companies that encourage repeat choices early can significantly influence long-term customer preferences. Once a behavior becomes habitual, factors like price or competing quality have less sway over decisions.
Editorial Notes:
- This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
- The journal paper was reviewed in full by editorial staff.
- Additional context was added by our team to clarify implications and practical relevance.
About this decision-making and neuroscience research news
Author: Nicole Gierig
Source: TUD
Contact: Nicole Gierig – TUD
Image credit: Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access. “Action repetition biases choice in context-dependent decision-making” by Ben J. Wagner, H. Benedikt Wolf & Stefan J. Kiebel. Published in Communications Psychology. DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00363-x
Abstract
Action repetition biases choice in context-dependent decision-making
Human decision-making is subject to biases that can make behavior appear irrational. One major contributor to these biases is the influence of the context in which choices are learned, which can shape preferences when options are later presented in new circumstances.
Many computational models (for example, relative value learning or range normalization) invoke extensive knowledge of the environment to account for these biases. The current study tested an alternative hypothesis: that a basic tendency to repeat context-specific actions can itself explain a substantial portion of decision biases.
The team ran nine value-based decision tasks with 351 participants and reanalyzed six published datasets comprising 350 participants. They found that options chosen more frequently within a context produced biased choices in later tests, including higher subjective valuation and reduced uncertainty for those repeated actions.
A hierarchical Bayesian reinforcement learning model incorporating two principles—learning from reward and a bias toward action repetition—was evaluated against the datasets. Results show that this simple combination accounts for biased choices in stable environments and outperforms alternative models tested, including implementations of value normalization and goal-centric accounts.
Overall, the findings offer a parsimonious mechanism for many habit-like choice tendencies and provide a clearer, more realistic framework for understanding decision biases in value-based choice situations.