Decision-making styles and cognitive biases: Experimental results from a Korean sample

Abstract

This study aims to identify which decision-making style is more prone to judgment errors induced by various heuristics by categorizing subjects into five decision-making styles: rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous. Specifically, we measure the frequency of judgment errors using the three heuristics of representativeness, availability, and anchoring and adjustment for each decision-making style by presenting 343 participants with several decision tasks. Logistic regression analysis is employed to discern the distinctive characteristics among the five decision-making styles. The results show that cognitive biases caused by using the heuristics differ based on individuals’ decision-making styles, suggesting that these styles are associated with their respective judgment error types. The experimental results of this study can support individuals in making more rational decisions by helping them understand which cognitive biases are likely to occur based on their specific decision-making style.