It seems like the dominant strategy is to always be in the passenger seat and always pick your favorite place.
It's true also of deciding what to watch. I've spent 30+ minutes debating what to watch, only to realize we should be going to sleep in just another 15 mins so no we can't really watch anything anymore
So over the years my strategy has morphed to making the decision and taking responsibility for making it an enjoyable experience for both
This is something I've personally wanted to dive into the psychology of more.
Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed that - in the days of streaming and everything being on-demand - picking what to watch is actually very frustrating to me. Quite often, I'd much rather just browse "live" TV and stop on something I like.
I'd never think to myself "I feel like watching The Goonies". But if I'm flipping channels and The Goonies happens to be on - 20 minutes into it - I'll stop there and absolutely enjoy watching the rest of it.
I wonder why that is.
There is probably some research that directly taps into it, I did come across and adjacent research paper -
“ New contexts, old heuristics: How young people in India and the US trust online content in the age of generative AI”
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.02522
The indication is that people consume content online in different modes based on their objectives. Perhaps the mode of consumption for food decisions / streaming decisions is part of the category where we dont want to work very hard to get to an answer.