Formalizing the fundamental Faustian bargain: Inefficacious decision-makers sacrifice their freedom of choice to coercive leaders for economic security

• Daniel A. DeCaro ,

  Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  * E-mail: daniel.decaro@louisville.edu

  ¶‡ These authors contributed equally to this work. DD and MD are Joint Senior Authors

  Affiliations Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States of America, Department of Urban and Public Affairs, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States of America

  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3869-4530

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• Marci S. DeCaro ,

  Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  ¶‡ These authors contributed equally to this work. DD and MD are Joint Senior Authors

  Affiliation Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States of America

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• Jared M. Hotaling,

  Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, United States of America

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• Rachel Appel

  Roles Investigation, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States of America

  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9105-3973

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