Attention costs drive differences between active and passive risk-taking

Abstract Humans change their exposure to risks either actively, by taking deliberate actions, or passively, through inaction. These different modes of choice may result in varying levels of risk exposure. This study introduces a novel experimental task, the Dynamic Lottery Adjustment Task (DLAT), to investigate the effects of active versus passive risk-taking across two related experiments. The DLAT addresses a gap in the literature, as existing incentivized risk measures exclusively target active risk-taking. Consequently, differences between active and passive risk-taking have previously been studied only through non-incentivized surveys and vignettes focusing on specific choice domains (e.g., vaccination decisions). The first study, a controlled laboratory experiment, shows little variation in risk-taking between active and passive choice modes, contradicting existing findings of a general “passive-is-less-risky” bias. Conversely, the second experiment, conducted online over ten days, introduces higher attention costs and provides strong evidence that these costs significantly influence risk-taking behaviors in more naturalistic decision-making environments. Our findings highlight the importance of considering situational factors, such as attention costs, in understanding how different choice modes affect risk-taking in real-life settings, including financial investments, health behaviors, or career choices.