Decision making: rational or hedonic?

Abstract

Three experiments studied the hedonicity of decision making. Participants rated their pleasure/ displeasure while reading item-sentences describing political and social problems followed by different decisions (Questionnaire 1). Questionnaire 2 was multiple-choice, grouping the items from Questionnaire 1. In Experiment 1, participants answered Questionnaire 2 rapidly or slowly.Both groups selected what they had rated as pleasant, but the 'leisurely' group maximized pleasure less. In Experiment 2, participants selected the most rational responses. The selected behaviors were pleasant but less than spontaneous behaviors. In Experiment 3, Questionnaire 2 was presented once with items grouped by theme, and once with items shuffled. Participants maximized the pleasure of their decisions, but the items selected on Questionnaires 2 were different when presented in different order. All groups maximized pleasure equally in their decisions.These results support that decisions are made predominantly in the hedonic dimension of consciousness.

Pleasure in decision‐making situations: politics and gambling

“…Friedman test for three variables, x 2 540.00, p,0.001. account for the divergence between this maximum and actual behavior (Cabanac and Bonniot-Cabanac 2007). Evans, Over, and Manktelow (1993) have described rationality as being composed of two components: rationality 1, or goal reaching, and rationality 2, or logical reasoning.…”

Obesity: Can Behavioral Economics Help?

“…An inability to deliberate leads to the reliance instead on heuristics that suggest what is appropriate, normal, or conventional to buy and how much to consume [39][40][41]. Heuristic-based food decisions may result in selecting and consuming types of food that have short-term hedonic benefits but long-term health detriments [42].…”

Methodological artifacts in tests of rational choice theory

“…Human behavior is driven by the desire to maximize the hedonic experience-a desire that is universally inherited (Balleine, Doya, O'Doherty, & Sakagami, 2007;Cabanac & Bonniot-Cabanac, 2007). Despite this uniformity in our motivations, there remains great interindividual variability within the processes underlying our decisions to act (Mellers, Schwartz, & Cooke, 1998).…”