In this article we argue that in order to understand failure or success in adapting to environmental change, we should better understand why people hesitate to pursue novel choices. This article asks: what forces hinder individuals’ exploration choices of different alternatives, and hence their ability to learn from them? To answer this question, this article looks to the cognitive sciences to identify a set of plausible mechanisms that hinder people’s tendency to explore. So far, “exploration” has been studied as a relatively monolithic behavior. Instead, we propose that exploration can be characterized in terms of some distinctive forces behind it. On one hand, agents experience “attachment” to choices that proved successful in the past, and hence comfort when sticking with them. On the other hand, they also experience concerns about less familiar options, as they lack knowledge about “distant” choices that have not been tried for a long time, or ever. We propose that high attachment is related to anxiety, and high distance to fear. Both these negative affective states hinder exploration. We find and discuss preliminary and tentative evidence of this effect.

中文翻译：

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探索探索：情感状态作为阻碍变化的力量的作用

在本文中，我们认为，为了理解适应环境变化的失败或成功，我们应该更好地理解人们为什么不愿追求新颖的选择。本文问：是什么因素阻碍了个人对不同选择的探索选择，从而阻碍了他们向他们学习的能力？为了回答这个问题，本文着眼于认知科学，以识别出一系列阻碍人们进行探索的合理机制。到目前为止，“探索”已被研究为相对单一的行为。相反，我们建议可以根据其背后的一些独特力量来表征勘探。一方面，座席会经历“附着”到过去证明成功的选择上，因此在坚持时会感到舒适。另一方面，他们还因为不太熟悉的选择而感到担忧，因为他们缺乏对“遥远”选择的了解，这些选择已经有很长时间没有尝试过了。我们建议高度依恋与焦虑和与恐惧的距离遥远有关。这些负面的情感状态都阻碍了探索。我们发现并讨论了这种效果的初步和初步证据。