Decision making styles and the use of heuristics in decision making

Abstract

Simple heuristics can be efficient ways of decision making and literature has shown that they are widely used in actual decision situations. Although many types of heuristics have been found and analyzed, there is only scarce research on factors that lead to the use of a particular heuristic. In the present paper, we describe an experiment to analyze whether the usage of a particular heuristic like recognition or take-the-best depends on individual decision making styles as identified by Scott and Bruce (Educ Psychol Meas 55(5):818–831, 1995). The experiment is based on a choice problem, in which different heuristics are likely to lead to different choices. Analyzing experimental data from two replications of the experiment in two different countries, we find some evidence that decision making styles influence the use of heuristics. However, considerable differences between the two experiments indicate that other, perhaps cultural, factors might also be important.