Tracking Individual Differences in Decision Making

University Of Iowa, Iowa City IA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Levin #0001316 Why do two persons, faced with exactly the same decision, decide differently? Tile existence of individual differences in judgment and decision making has been widely noted but riot many previous studies have focused on identifying the antecedent conditions. Tin this proposal we focus on stable person characteristics that relate to the manner in which information is processed in arriving at a judgment or decision. The proposed experiments will provide links between individual difference indices and measures of the process by which a decision maker reaches his or her final choice. Individual difference measures to be used in the proposed research include personality factors such as extraversion and neuroticiscn which have been shown in previous research to account for significant variance in various tasks in memory and cognition, measures of affective state, and most notably, a measure of cognitive style widely and successfully used in the areas of persuasion and attitude change but only recently used in the area of judgment. and decision making. Such measures should provide us with new insights into why, in the same situation, one person will decide one way and another person will decide the other way.