Assessing Individual Differences in Decision Making Styles: Analytical vs. Intuitive

Abstract

Decision strategies are often characterized as being intuition-based or analytically-based. The use of these strategies is proposed to be associated with individual differences in propensity toward using different decision making styles. A reliable self-report measure, the Decision Making Styles Inventory (DMI), consisting of 15 items on each of three scales was constructed. The items were found to differentiate among an "analytical", an "intuitive", and a "regret-based" emotional decision making style. The analytical and intuitive scales were found to predict differences in performance in a complex dynamic decision making task. On a decision making subtask, a greater general reliance on an analytical decision making style was found to lead to poorer performance. Greater reliance on a more intuitive approach had no effect on this subtask, but was found to predict better performance as workload levels increased. These findings suggest that human performance may be significantly influenced when either a more intuitive or analytical decision style is used. Implications for training the adaptive decision maker are discussed.

Morningness–Eveningness and Risk Taking

“…Downloaded by [Cambridge University Library] In addition, Fabbri, Antonietti, Grorgetti, Tonetti, and Natale (2007) associated morning types with left-brain thinking, which follows analytic, sequential, and conservative models of reasoning; evening types, by contrast, were associated with right-brain thinking, which processes information in intuitive, imaginative, feeling-guided ways. Future-time perspectives and left-brain thinking are negatively related to risk taking (Nygren & White, 2002;Zimbardo, Keough, & Boyd, 1997). All of these findings support the premise that morning types are less likely to engage in risky behaviors than other types are.…”

Maximization Inventory

“…Decision making styles The Decision Making Style Inventory (Nygren, 2000;Nygren & White, 2002), composed of three 15-item scales, was used to measure decision making styles. Analytical decision making is the propensity to engage in effortful deliberation in choice situations (e.g., "In making decisions I try to evaluate the importance of each piece of information in the decision process.").…”

“…Previous studies of the relationship between the maximization behavior and measures of well-being included criterion variables measuring regret, decision making styles, subjective happiness and optimism scales (Diab et al, 2008;Nenkov et al, 2008;Parker, Bruin, & Fischhoff, 2007;Schwartz et al, 2002). In an attempt to replicate this previous research for our new scales, we included the Decision Making Style Inventory (Nygren, 2000; Nygren & White, 2002), the Life Orientation Test as a measure of optimism (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994), the General Self-efficacy Scale (Sherer et al, 1982), the Unconditional Self-regard Scale (Betz, Wohlgemuth, Serling, Harshbarger, & Klein, 1995), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). Based on the findings of Parker et al (2007) and Rim et al (2011), we postulated that maximizers (i.e., participants with higher scores on decision difficulty and alternative search) would score highly on maladaptive decision making styles, whereas satificers (i.e., participants scoring highly on our new satisficing scale) would score more highly on positive adaptive decision making styles and in particular, the analytical decision making style.…”

Assessment of Two Desk-Top Computer Simulations Used to Train Tactical Decision Making (TDM) of Small Unit Infantry Leaders

“…Results from two studies (Nygren, 2000;Nygren & White, 2002) suggested that the tendency toward either an analytic or intuitive decision style can affect performance on complex tasks performed by pilots during simulation training. A reliance on an analytical decision style led to poorer performance than an intuitive approach when there were multiple sub-tasks, each with its own performance criteria.…”