Decisions are almost always preceded by information search aimed at finding the option that is most preferable. How much information one acquires before making a decision should be sensitive to relevant characteristics of the decision situation, such as information costs or decision importance. The confidence with which one wants to make a choice is a plausible candidate for how we can regulate or pre-decisional search amount to adapt to different decision characteristics. To investigate its role, we conducted two experiments (total N of 238) aimed at manipulating participants’ general sense of confidence, in which they made binary decisions based on self-truncated information and reported their confidence.

In the first experiment, one condition received negatively distorted decision feedback while the other received accurate feedback before completing the remainder of the decisions without any additional feedback. As expected, participants in the distorted-feedback condition collected significantly more information. Mixed-model-analyses indicate that they needed more evidence to reach the same confidence level as the control condition.

The second experiment manipulated the ratio of information cost and payoff across two blocks of 60 decisions each such that information was relatively more expensive in the second block. Again, mixed-model analyses indicated that in the second block participants needed more evidence to reach similar confidence levels. Whether and how this might contribute to adaptive behaviour will be the focus of the discussion.