Decision-makers use social information to update their preferences—but choose for others as they do for themselves

People’s risky decisions can be highly influenced by the social context in which they take place. Across three experiments we investigated the influence of three social factors upon participants’ decisions: the recipient of the decision-making outcome (self, other, or joint), the nature of the relationship with the other agent (friend, stranger, or teammate), and the type of information that participants received about others’ preferences: none at all, information about how previous participants had decided, or information about a partner’s preference. We found that participants’ decisions about risk did not differ according to whether the outcome at stake was their own, another agent’s, or a joint outcome, nor according to the type of information available. Participants were, however, willing to adjust their preferences for risky options in light of social information.