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Process Measures

Resolution processes can provide insights into decision-making, as they are influenced by the task and alternative variations. Decision-makers use conclusion rules to evaluate options, such as adding positive or negative aspects and choosing important aspects based on cutoffs. Decision-makers combine fragments of decision rules to evaluate remaining options.

Process measures, such as response latencies and inter-dimensional comparisons, can provide rich data but may not accurately represent natural decision processes. A complementary approach relies on task conditions, stimulus manipulations, and individual differences to infer underlying decision processes and moderators.

Affect in decision-making is important

Decision research evaluates options based on probability and payoff. Decisions are often influenced by the affective reactions to options, which are the emotional reaction to the goodness or attractiveness of options. Researchers have used various methodologies to examine the role, primacy, and speed of affective reactions to decision stimuli, such as subliminal priming, observation of individuals with damaged affective processing, and the impact of putting respondents in a positive or negative mood.

Judgment and decision-making are two systems

Automatic evaluations of judgments and decisions are common, with more deliberate processes being activated as needed to correct or override the automatic responses.

Deliberate evaluations of options and their attributes play a greater role in choice than automatic responses. Choice anomalies, such as asymmetric dominance and compromise effects, are difficult to explain based on value maximization or the notion that decisions are made automatically.

Social and Cultural Aspects of Decision Making

Decision researchers have studied the role of social, cultural, and individual differences in decision-making.

Some social aspects, such as conformity, have received relatively little emphasis, despite their clearly important role in decision-making, in part because they appear straightforward and not surprising.

Social conditions, such as accountability and justification, can moderate and diminish people's susceptibility to judgment and decision errors.

Research has shown that social incentives have a limited beneficial impact on decision performance, but could reduce some errors due to limited effort.