 First of all, a number of empirical studies show that the vividness of mental imagery biases our behavior. If you are deciding between two positive scenarios, the one that brings up the more vivid mental imagery tends to win out. And if you are deciding between two negative scenarios, the one that brings up the less vivid mental imagery tends to win out (Austin and Vancouver 1996, Trope and Liberman 2003, see also the rich literature on construal level theory and also on the effects of the vividness of mental imagery on future discounting, see Parthasarathi et al. 2017, Mok et al. 2020). Here is an example: If a smoker is deciding between smoking a cigarette and not smoking one, the smoking option brings up very vivid and detailed (and emotionally charged) mental imagery. Meanwhile, the non-smoking option doesn’t bring up any mental imagery at all, or if it does it is not at all detailed and not at all vivid (of just sitting there, not smoking). This is why smoking tends to win out, and also why it is often difficult to stop procrastinating activities like playing video games or checking our social media feed: continuing what we have been doing is represented much more vividly than stopping.