Decision-making styles and information search – the relationships with need for cognition and curiosity

• Main Authors: Jozef Bavoľár, Šimon Miháľ
• Format: Article
• Language: ces
• Published: University of Ostrava 2018-11-01
• Series: Psychology and its Contexts
• Subjects: decision-making styles; need for cognition; curiosity
• Online Access: http://psychkont.osu.cz/fulltext/2018/18-2_Bavolar-Mihal.pdf
• ISSN: 1803-9278; 1805-9023

Decision-making styles, which are defined as habit-based propensities to react in a certain way in a specific decision context (Scott & Bruce, 1995), have been in past found to be related to heterogeneous personality characteristics (Dewberry, Juanchich, & Narendran, 2013) as well as real world decision outcomes (Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2007). Although the past research has also found relationships with another cognitive characteristics such as intelligence (Hill et al., 2013) or decision-making competence (Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2007), the associations with variables describing individual’s search for new information have not been investigated yet. The study aimed mainly to investigate the role of selected decision-making styles in explaining two variables describing information search – need for cognition and curiosity. Five decision/making styles were assessed by the General Decision-Making Styles – rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous. Need for cognition was measured by the short version of the Need for Cognition scale (Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984) and curiosity by the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II (Kashdan et al., 2009) with two subscales – stretching (motivation to seek out knowledge and new experiences) and embracing (willingness to embrace the novel, uncertain, and unpredictable nature of everyday life). Data were obtained from the high school sample (n = 98, Mage = 16.45, 59% females) including two types of school – general grammar school (n = 48) and vocational school (n = 50). Data analysis included basic descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, multiple linear analysis, and independent samples t-test. Correlations as well as linear regression results indicate that need for cognition and curiosity are related positively to the rational decision-making style and negatively to the avoidant decision-making style. The spontaneous style was associated only with curiosity, but in all three decision-making styles have been observed substantial differences in correlation with two curiosity subscales – stretching and embracing. While the associations with the rational and spontaneous style were driven by the correlations with stretching, the contrary was valid for the spontaneous style – it was related to the embracing, but not to the stretching score, and similar pattern was found by the relationship of curiosity and need for cognition. When comparing general grammar school with the vocational school, no significant differences were found in decision-making styles, need for cognition and curiosity. The results are discussed with regard to the past research with similar concepts – thinking styles or group processes and differences between need for cognition and curiosity are elaborated. The results point not only on importance of need for cognition and curiosity in a way of making decisions, but also on necessity to differentiate aspects of curiosity and treat them separately.