EAPSI: Understanding how people incorporate others' preferences into personal choices

Tompson Steven R, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

People are constantly bombarded with choices in their everyday lives. Often these choices are made, not in a vacuum, but rather in a complex social environment. The current project aims to examine how people make effective choices and how they incorporate others' thoughts and feelings into their decision-making process. This project will directly compare choice strategies of people from the United States (an individualistic culture that values expressing one's personal preferences) and people from Japan (a collectivistic cultures that values being sensitive to others' thoughts and opinions). This work will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Yukiko Uchida at Kyoto University, a noted expert in the field of Cultural Psychology. By understanding the dynamic interplay between personal information (e.g., personal preferences), objective information (e.g., product specifications), and social information (e.g., others' preferences), this research can ultimately help people make better choices which lead to better long-term physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction. Both psychological and economic theories of choice have almost exclusively focused on the role of personal preferences in choice, and therefore this research expands upon this literature by investigating the role of others' preferences in the choice process. The majority of peer-reviewed studies examining decision-making processes have examined choice in a Western, industrialized context, and thus less is known about whether the same choice strategies may be used elsewhere. In the current project both American and Japanese participants will complete hypothetical and real choices and the degree to which these individuals rely on personal information, objective information, and social information to make choices will be measured. The project will also examine the degree to which reliance on these different types of information influence self-reported post-choice satisfaction, confidence, and regret. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.