Quitting a job. Buying a house. Everyone at some point in their lives will make a risky choice that may have a cascading effect on their life path. However, with increasing globalization and technological advancements, choices in today's world are rapidly shifting—seeming more plentiful and complicated than ever. This poses a challenge for researchers who are looking to make sense of how people deal with risk and uncertainty.
In a 2025 study in Psychological Science , researchers went beyond the lab to gather data , asking everyday people about their risky choices. They were curious to learn which aspects were particularly relevant and challenging in modern society—all to build a stronger foundation for behavioral and decision-making research.
"Our basic goal was really to try to tap people's actual experiences from real life," said Renato Frey, a coauthor of the study and professor of psychology at the University of Zurich. Previous research exploring risk and decision making has been done in a "top-down manner," he said, meaning that researchers themselves often come up with scenarios that they consider to be risky. But because those scenarios are usually built on theories and paradigms developed decades ago, "pun intended, there's the risk that we study outdated phenomena," he said.
To build an inventory of today's risky choices , Frey and colleagues recruited multiple samples of participants in Switzerland. Their aim was to create a large and diverse population sample that varied in gender and captured a wide range of ages. Overall, the team surveyed more than 4,380 participants.
"And then in a relatively straightforward way, we just asked our study participants to report a single risky choice," Frey explained. The question was phrased differently between participants to gain a wider range of choices. Some participants were asked to list a choice that they had personally encountered. Others were asked for one made by someone in their social circle. The question also varied in the ultimate decision made: Some participants were asked to describe when they took the riskier option and others for when they opted for the safer choice.
The term "risky choice" was intentionally left undefined to capture two broad types of choices. The first were choices that involve elements of randomness, such as playing roulette, which some researchers refer to as a "decision under risk." The second were choices with entirely unknown consequences, such as founding a startup, which some researchers refer to as a "decision under uncertainty."
The study's researchers then analyzed this collection of risky choices, first to identify how many unique choices existed, and then to classify and condense. The result is 100 of the most common risky choices faced by modern-day Swiss citizens.
This inventory has information on how common a risky choice is and what life domain it's often linked to (i.e., occupational, financial, etc.). The result is an instrument that researchers can use to dig into bigger questions.
For instance, because of the timing of the study, Frey and his colleagues could assess whether risky choices shifted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic . They found that "by and large, the distributions of these risky choices to different life domains stay fairly constant," Frey said. This means that the types of risky choices people experience at different moments in time, known as the ecology or landscape of risk, is "surprisingly stable."
For instance, across multiple assessments, the study authors found that occupational risky choices, like starting a new job or quitting an existing one, are consistently the most cited risks. This was followed by health-related, financial, social, traffic-related, and recreational choices (e.g., traveling alone).
"That was quite an interesting finding," Frey said. He noted that researchers sometimes prioritize health or recreational choices when assessing how frequently people engage in real-life risky behaviors. "But according to our data, it seems to be a bit like vice versa. First and foremost, people think of occupational risky choices," he said.
The new research also pinpointed some gender- and age-related patterns. For example, job-quitting is a common risky choice for younger adults, whereas older populations tend to be more worried about whether to accept a new job. "These more nuanced patterns help us understand essentially which subgroups of the population are exposed to which risky choices," Frey explained. "I think this helps policymakers better understand whether people of particular subgroups of the population need support or decision aids."
This inventory of choices can also aid future research. It can provide a foundation for scientists to develop, validate, and calibrate new measurement tools related to risk and uncertainty, Frey said.
Finally, the study shows that although psychology often focuses on testing theories in a lab, it is also about discovering the everyday experiences of people. "I think this [study] could serve as kind of a blueprint for how, at least every once in a while, we should probably reach out and do this more discovery-oriented, data-driven, bottom-up research," Frey said. "We really need both parts in psychological science."
Reference
Frey, R., & Fischer, O. (2025). Mapping the ecology of risk: 100 risky choices of modern life . Psychological Science.
