Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Three chapters demonstrate previously unexplored contextual and emotional factors that critically and systematically affect the way in which people construct value and generate choice options in the pre-decision phase of the decision process. This pre-decision phase occurs in the time before an individual makes a choice. In particular, emotions, the recall of prior tradeoffs, and self-regulation all play an important role during this pre-decision phase and consequently influence decision making. Chapter I indicates that negative, aversive emotions associated with stress and anxiety are evoked by difficult multi-attribute decisions, which some people regulate by shifting their values before making a decision. In Chapter II, recalling a past tradeoff situation leads to the activation and carry over of a valued attribute onto a subsequent, unrelated choice. This value carryover process occurs in a manner that suggests people may balance the prioritization of different values across tradeoff contexts. Chapter III reveals that under conditions of reduced inhibitory control, both younger and older adult participants become vulnerable to distracting information. In these circumstances, the distracting information is especially likely to lead to more creative construction decisions when it is relevant to the decision domain (e.g., when the distracting information is food-related and the construction decision is a creative recipe generation task). This dissertation demonstrates the importance of studying the pre-decision phase in order to better understand the decision process, and has important implications for how people construct value and choice options.
Author: Stephanie M. Carpenter
Language: English
Subfield: General Decision Sciences
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2622478272