Life is full of choices. Some solutions relatively easy to do: “What do I want to eat for dinner?” low risk and relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. However, there are other scenarios. many, many more difficult. Quitting your job, starting a family, corresponding with a problematic ex – all of this can potentially lead to serious life consequences. But what choices do people face the most?
To better understand our everyday dilemmas, psychologists from the University of Zurich in Switzerland developed an open-ended survey to assess general stress around various uncertainties. Instead of asking more than 4,380 volunteers in Switzerland to choose from a closed set of risky scenarios, the researchers, led by Renato Frey, left the response field completely blank. Based on the results detailed in their study published in the journal Psychological ScienceThere are some patterns to what worries us most in 2025.
“In a relatively simple way, we simply asked study participants to report one risky choice,” Frey says the statement. “Overall, the distribution of these risky decisions across different areas of life remains fairly constant.
Regardless of demographic group, most people most often associate risk with accepting a new job. This was immediately followed by quitting my job, as well as investing money, driving a car, working for myself and buying a house.
Surprisingly, the results were often contrary to what many of the study authors had assumed before the survey was conducted. While the researchers expected that health or daily activities such as traveling alone might top the list, it turned out to be the opposite.
“It was a pretty interesting find, but our data suggests it's a little bit the other way around,” Frey said. “The first thing people think about is professional risk-taking.”
Ultimately, Frey's team compiled a shortened list of the 100 most common risky decisions that ordinary people face. They are further categorized by subjects such as “career,” “finance,” or “relationships,” as well as by demographic characteristics such as age and gender identification. This allows reviewers to focus on different aspects and identify common themes. One possible example suggested by the study authors concerns the timing of the survey. The researchers examined whether risky choices changed before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Frey noted that rather than making any noticeable changes, responses remained “remarkably stable.”
The only thing that differed between individual participants was the manner in which the question was posed. The word “risky” was deliberately left vague to elicit as broad a response as possible. For some people, risk is mainly associated with chance events such as gambling, but others may think about situations that have very serious consequences. Volunteers were also asked to explain a risky choice they had made themselves, while others were told a story from someone in their social circle. They were then asked to describe the outcome of both these riskier and safer decisions.
However, demographics did influence some responses. Young people usually call quitting a job a big risk, while older respondents emphasize that they would accept a new job.
“These finer-grained patterns help us understand which subgroups of the population are exposed to which risky choices,” Frey explained.
The study authors believe the new database could soon help policymakers identify which populations need more help or decision-making support, while other psychologists could use the information to understand broader themes between patients.
“I think it's [study] could serve as sort of a template for how, at least from time to time, we should probably reach out and do this more discovery-oriented, data-driven, bottom-up research,” Frey said.
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