People are more likely to make choices themselves than delegate to an agent, even when it may not be the most optimal decision based on a cost-benefit analysis. Previous studies have demonstrated that retaining authority and controllability might be the primary reason for preferring self-choice. The current study asks whether impairment of controllability associated with self-choice can increase the rate of delegation and whether there are self-other discrepancies in self-choice preference. In three studies, we directly manipulated participants' controllability associated with choice through literal instructions (experiment 1) and visual presentation (experiments 2 and 3). We found that participants showed a robust propensity to under-delegate even when they were aware of their impaired controllability associated with self-choice. Moreover, only 40% impairment of controllability (but not 20%) can decrease the propensity to under-delegate. This trend differed between decision-for-self and decision-for-other. These findings suggest that pursuing a sense of control cannot fully explain self-choice preference and appears to occur equally in decisions for oneself as well as for others.

人们可能更愿意自己做出选择，而不是委派给代理商，即使这并不是基于成本效益分析的最佳选择。先前的研究表明，保留权威和可控性可能是偏爱自我选择的主要原因。当前的研究询问，与自我选择相关的可控性受损是否会增加授权率，以及自我选择偏好中是否存在其他自我差异。在三项研究中，我们通过文字指令（实验1）和视觉表示（实验2和3）直接操纵了参与者与选择相关的可控性。我们发现，即使参与者意识到与自我选择相关的可控性受损，他们也表现出强烈的降低倾向。此外，只有40％的可控制性受损（而不是20％）会降低欠授权的倾向。这种自我决定和他人决定的趋势有所不同。这些发现表明，追求控制感不能完全解释自我选择的偏好，并且似乎在对自己以及对他人的决策中同样发生。