Decision Structuring in Important Real-Life Choices

Results from five studies of real-life decision making are compared. In these studies, participants consistently constrained the amount of information they considered to relatively few options and to a somewhat larger set of criteria. Over time, the number of options considered shrank, but the number of criteria used did not. People's intuitive “calibration” with the predictions of normative linear models is surprisingly good. Although there are effects of education and ability on the amount of information considered, different decision-making styles correlate mostly with affective reactions to, and subjective descriptions of, the approach to a specific decision. Implications for theoretical models of decision making are discussed.

[1]  D. Perkins Postprimary Education Has Little Impact on Informal Reasoning. , 1985 .

[2]  Eric J. Johnson,et al.  The adaptive decision maker , 1993 .

[3]  R. Clemen,et al.  Beyond expected utility: rethinking behavioral decision research. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[4]  Robyn M. Dawes Judgment under uncertainty: The robust beauty of improper linear models in decision making , 1982 .

[5]  K. Galotti,et al.  How do high school students structure an important life decision? A short-term longitudinal study of the college decision-making process , 1994 .

[6]  Reginald A. Bruce,et al.  Decision-Making Style: The Development and Assessment of a New Measure , 1995 .

[7]  R. Hertwig,et al.  The priority heuristic: making choices without trade-offs. , 2006, Psychological review.

[8]  K. Galotti Memories of a 'decision-map': recall of a real-life decision , 1995 .

[9]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[10]  K. Galotti,et al.  Adolescents' experience of a life-framing decision , 1996 .

[11]  Kathleen M. Galotti,et al.  Approaches to studying formal and everyday reasoning. , 1989 .

[12]  R. Dawes Judgment under uncertainty: The robust beauty of improper linear models in decision making , 1979 .

[13]  R. Cooksey The Methodology of Social Judgement Theory , 1996 .

[14]  A. Tversky,et al.  The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. , 1981, Science.

[15]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  On the Foundations of Prescriptive Decision Analysis , 1992 .

[16]  Gary Klein,et al.  Naturalistic Decision Making , 2008, Hum. Factors.

[17]  Michael E. Doherty,et al.  A note on the assessment of self-insight in judgment research , 1989 .

[18]  Robert Loo,et al.  A psychometric evaluation of the General Decision-Making Style Inventory , 2000 .

[19]  L. Beach Broadening the Definition of Decision Making: The Role of Prechoice Screening of Options , 1993 .

[20]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  Models of Man: Social and Rational. , 1957 .

[21]  John W. Payne,et al.  Task complexity and contingent processing in decision making: An information search and protocol analysis☆ , 1976 .

[22]  Kathleen M. Galotti,et al.  A longitudinal study of real‐life decision making: Choosing a college , 1995 .

[23]  G Gigerenzer,et al.  Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality. , 1996, Psychological review.

[24]  Kathleen M. Galotti,et al.  Decision-making styles in a real-life decision: Choosing a college major , 2006 .

[25]  K. Galotti,et al.  Midwife or doctor: a study of pregnant women making delivery decisions. , 2000, Journal of midwifery & women's health.

[26]  Lee Roy Beach,et al.  Image theory: Theoretical and empirical foundations. , 1998 .

[27]  Gary Klein,et al.  Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions , 2017 .

[28]  John W. Payne,et al.  The adaptive decision maker: Name index , 1993 .

[29]  James P. Byrnes,et al.  The Nature and Development of Decision-making: A Self-regulation Model , 1998 .

[30]  K. Galotti Making a "major" real-life decision: College students choosing an academic major. , 1999 .