Individual differences in decisiveness: pre-decisional information search and decision strategy use

• Authors: Szymon Wichary , Małgorzata Kossowska , Jarosław Orzechowski , Sylwia Ślifierz , Jan Marković

Abstracts

EN

We investigated whether individual differences in decisiveness are associated with a tendency to use different decision strategies during pre-decisional information search. To explore these potential links we administered the Need for Cognitive Closure questionnaire to 62 participants, followed by a probabilistic inference, multi-attribute choice task. Participants high in decisiveness dimension, compared to ‘low decisives’, spent less time and acquired less information prior to making decisions, especially in the first trials of the choice task. ‘High decisives’ also had a greater tendency to use a simple Lexicographic heuristic than ‘low decisives’. The results support the view that high decisiveness is associated with greater tendency to simplify the decision process.

Keywords

EN

decisiveness; information search; decision strategies; simple heuristics

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 39
• Issue: 1

Contributors

author

Szymon Wichary

• Warsaw School of Social Psychology, Warsaw, Poland

author

Małgorzata Kossowska

• Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

author

Jarosław Orzechowski

• Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

author

Sylwia Ślifierz

• Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

author

Jan Marković

• Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

References

• Broeder, A. (2000). Assesing the empirical validity of the "Take-The-Best" heuristic as a model of human probabilistic inference.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 26, 1332-1364.
• Dawes, R., & Corrigan, B. (1974). Linear models in decision making.Psychological Bulletin, 81, 95-106.
• Einhorn, H. J. (1970). The use of nonlinear, noncompensatory models in decision making.Psychological Bulletin, 73, 221-230.
• Fasolo, B., Misuraca, R., McClelland, G. (2003). Individual differences in adaptive choice strategies.Research in Economics, 57, 219-233.
• Ferrari, J. R., Dovidio, J. F. (2001). Behavioral information search by indecisives.Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 1113-1123.
• Ford, J. K., Schmitt, N., Schechtman, S. L., Hults, B. H., & Doherty, M. L. (1989). Process tracing methods: Contributions, problems, and neglected research questions.Organizational Behavior and Decision Processes, 43, 75-117.
• Gigerenzer, G. & Goldstein, D. (1996). Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality.Psychological Review, 103, 650-669.
• Gigerenzer, G., Todd P. M. and the ABC Research Group (1999).Simple Heuristics that Make Us Smart.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Johnson, E. J., Payne, J. W., Schkade, D. A., & Bettman, J. R. (1986). Monitoring information processing and decisions: The Mouselab system. Unpublished manuscript, Center for Decision Studies, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
• Kossowska, M., Van Hiel, A., Chun, W. Y. & Kruglanski, A. (2002). The need for cognitive closure scale: structure, cross-cultural invariance, and comparison of mean ratings between European-American and East Asian Samples.Psychologica Belgica, 42, 2267-286.
• Kruglanski, A. & Webster, D. (1996). Motivated closing of the mind: "seizing" and "freezing".Psychological Review, 103, 263-283.
• Neuberg, S. L. & Newsom, J. T. (1993). Personal need for structure: individual differences in the desire for simple structure.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 113-131.
• Onken, J., Hastie, R., Revelle, W. (1985). Individual differences in the use of simplification strategies in a complex decision-making task.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 11, 14-27.
• Payne, J. W. (1976). Task complexity and contingent processing in decision making: an information search and protocol analysis.Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 366-387.
• Payne, J. W., Bettman, J. R., & Johnson, E. J. (1988). Adaptive strategy selection in decision making.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 14, 534-552.
• Payne, J. W., Bettman, J. R. & Johnson, E. J. (1993).The Adaptive Decision Maker.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Rieskamp, J. & Hoffrage, U. (1999). When do people use simple heuristics and how can we tell? In G. Gigerenzer, P. M. Todd and the ABC Research GroupSimple Heuristics that Make Us Smart.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Russo & Dosher (1983). Strategies for multiattribute, binary choice.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 9, 676-696.
• Shiloh, S., Koren, S., Zakay, D. (2001). Individual differences in compensatory decision-making style and need for closure as correlates of subjective decision complexity and difficulty.Individual Differences and Personality, 30, 699-710.
• Vermeir I, Van Kenhove, P., Hendrickx, H. (2002). The influence of need for closure on consumer choice behaviour.Journal of Economic Psychology, 23, 703-727.
• Webster, D. & Kruglanski, A. (1994). Individual differences in need for cognitive closure.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 261-271.
• Wright, P. (1974). The harassed decision maker: Time pressure, distraction and the use of evidence.Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 555-561.
• Zakay, D. (1990). The role of personal tendencies in the selection of decision making strategies.The Psychological Record, 40, 207-213.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10059-008-0007-6