Bad decisions aren’t always a choice - they’re built into your brain

You’ve told yourself a thousand times you’ll change your behavior. But you don’t – even when the consequences are obvious. Why? A new study has dug into that question with a deceptively simple learning game – and what it reveals is uncomfortable but important.

It turns out that some people don’t just make bad decisions. They keep making them. Not because they’re lazy or unaware, but because they can’t connect their actions to the consequences, even when those consequences are made crystal clear.

The study comes from researchers at UNSW Sydney. It involved an online decision-making game designed to measure how people learn from negative outcomes.

The goal wasn’t to test intelligence or willpower. It was to see whether people can recognize the link between what they do and what happens next – and what they do with that knowledge.

Learning from bad decisions

Here’s how the game worked: participants had to choose between two planets. One planet led to a ship that gave them points. The other? It stole points they’d already earned.

The punishment didn’t happen every time, but it happened enough that most people could eventually, figure it out.

After enough rounds, a pattern emerged. Some players learned which planet was risky and avoided it. Others didn’t – at least not right away. And some kept picking the punishing planet, even after they were told exactly what it was doing.

“We found that some people just don’t learn from experience,” said Dr. Philip Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel of UNSW Sydney. “

Even when they’re motivated to avoid harm and are paying attention, they fail to realize their own behavior is causing the problem.”

Some learn, others don’t

The researchers observed three distinct behavioral types. Sensitives were quick to recognize which choices led to losses and adjusted their behavior accordingly.

Unawares didn’t figure it out on their own, but once the connection was explained, they changed their strategy.

Compulsives, however, stood out – they continued making the same bad decisions even after being shown exactly how their actions were causing the problem.

“We basically told them, ‘this action leads to that negative consequence, and this other one is safe’,” said Dr. Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel. “Most people who had been making poor choices changed their behavior immediately. But some didn’t.”

Testing brains across borders

The original version of this experiment ran with psychology students in Australia. This new study expanded the pool: 267 participants from 24 countries, spanning a range of cultures, ages, and backgrounds – including people over 50.

This time, researchers added six-month follow-ups. After half a year, participants were invited to play the game again.

Researchers also asked them to describe their thought process – what they believed was happening, and what they thought the best strategy was.

Behavior types hold steady

Despite the broader sample, the results were remarkably consistent. “We ran the same task with a general population sample from 24 countries – people of different ages, backgrounds, and life experiences,” Dr. Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel said.

“And what we found was that the same behavioral profiles emerged. Everything we’d seen in Australian psychology students replicated almost exactly.”

In the original study, 35 percent were Sensitives, 41 percent were Unawares, and 23 percent were Compulsives. In the international version: 26 percent Sensitives, 47 percent Unawares, and 27 percent Compulsives.

The small shift? Possibly due to age. Older participants – especially those over 50 – were more likely to be in the Compulsive group.

“This may be linked to cognitive flexibility – the ability to adapt your thinking. And that tends to decline with age,” said Dr. Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel.

Bad decisions repeat for a reason

One of the biggest surprises came at the six-month follow-up. Most people showed the same behavior profile as before. That consistency suggested something deeper than random mistakes.

“That was one of the more striking findings,” said Dr. Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel. “It suggests these aren’t just random mistakes or bad days. They’re stable traits – almost like personality types. This is not to say they’re fixed, just that they may require intervention to break.”

And no, these weren’t mindless decisions either. When asked why they chose what they did, even the Compulsives often described their (flawed) strategies in detail.

“We asked participants what they thought was the best strategy, and they often described exactly what they were doing – even when it was clearly the wrong choice,” said Dr. Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel.

In other words, the problem isn’t always awareness. It’s implementation. People know what they’re doing. They just can’t seem to stop.

What it means for real-world behavior

The researchers are careful not to stretch the implications too far. Real life is more complicated than a game. But the behaviors they saw – ignoring evidence, repeating bad decisions – do show up in the real world.

“Of course, real life is far more complex than the simple game we devised. But the patterns we’re seeing, where people ignore both experience and information, are similar to what we see in gambling and other compulsive behaviors,” said Dr. Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel.

This also sheds light on public health efforts. Many campaigns focus on informing people about risks – smoking, drinking, unhealthy eating, overspending – assuming they’ll change once they understand the consequences. But that assumption may be flawed.

“We’ve shown that standard information campaigns work for most people – but not for everyone,” noted Dr. Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel. “For compulsive individuals, we may need a different kind of intervention.”

The full study was published in the journal Communications Psychology.

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