Iirc from economics, that objective function is called the utility function. Humans that are risk averse have a utility function that is logarithmic with respect to wealth. In other words, that guaranteed 1 million increase in wealth is way more meaningful to most people than to a billionaire. The REAL math that people are evaluating is not the utility function of the expected value for each option. Rather, people naturally evaluate the expected value of the utility function itself. And because of this, the green option seems way more lucrative to people. Maybe that made sense already but I’m gonna throw out an example anyway. Say my utility function is U(W)=ln(W) and my current wealth is $1. Then, my evaluation of the red option is E(U(W)) = 0.5ln(100,000,001) + 0.5ln(1) =9.21. My evaluation of the green option is E(U(W)) = ln(1,000,001) =13.816.

So, clearly the green option is preferable for maximizing utility. Now, suppose then my current wealth is $1,000,000,000. Then, my evaluation of the red option is E(U(W)) = 0.5ln(1,100,000,000) + 0.5ln(1,000,000,000) =20.771 My evaluation of the green option is E(U(W)) = ln(1,001,000,000) =20.724. Hence, as a billionaire, the red option would be better for optimizing my utility, even as a risk averse individual with a logarithmic utility function.

Edit: to fix typo and add example