Decision-making Flashcards
3 ways families make decisions
- Accommodation: when you go along with something you’re not super excited about because you know the other person is really excited about
- Consensus: everyone agrees – socially desirable
- De facto – lack of dissent, nobody really cares about outcome so one person makes a suggestion and you go with it
what determines a couple’s decision-making influence?
- Emotional interdependence – ability to control each other and influence consensus
- Commitment to the relationship (husbands respond to wives suggestions)
- How close to each other the couple are
- Degree of cooperativeness and communication between them
- Level of education
decision-making: complex vs. simple, automatic vs. syncratic
- Complex or simple
- Syncratic: husband, wife share equally
- Automatic: spouses make equal number of decisions independently
types of power considered most relevant for influencing decisions
- Expertise
- Legitimate
- Referent or attraction: might want to identify with that person -> ie. Pleasing someone
- Reward
- Coercive – when you’re pressured into doing things the child wants
how can children influence us?
- Active social power (ie. Direct ask, persistence)
- Passive social power: parents already know what you want
- Decision history: which power have you reinforced in the past?
- Preference intensity: what’s important to them? They’ll use multiple strategies if needed
direct ask
- very common and most effective strategy for kids to get what they want (unless it’s overused)
- Ex. Me asking for one thing I really wanted when I was little
social power used by 8-11 year-olds when buying toys
- Expert: kids showed knowledge about toys; used expertise about it to make parent listen
- Referent: select product that parents approved
- Reward: show affection, ask nicely, just ask, bargain
- Coercive: anger, beg, con
other findings from the 8-11 year-old toy study
- Mothers felt child had legitimate and expert powers – why? Not their money
- Didn’t attribute passive referent, reward, or coercive power to their child
- Decision history of successes built confidence for future successful influence
- Strong preference: viewed self as more influential
resource theory
- Financial
- Knowledge
- Ability
relative investment theory
- Product importance
- Use of product
teen influence
- Teens have influence
- Teens overstate influence
- Mother and father agree on teen’s influence
influence strategies used most often by teens
- Bargaining
- Money deals
- Other deals
- Reasoning - Persuasion
- Opinionates
- Begging
adolescents’ most effective strategies (according to them, moms, and dads)
- Adolescent’s view: Money deals, reasoning, direct ask
- Mother’s view: Reasoning, other deals, reasonable request
- Father’s view: Reasoning, other deals, direct ask
adolescents’ least effective strategies (according to them, moms, and dads)
- Adolescents: Begging, “everyone else”, anger
- Mother’s view: Whining, “everyone else”, anger
- Father’s view: Begging, anger, whining, demands
Chinese vs. Causasian Canadian teens’ influence on purchases
- No difference for more expensive durable products
- Chinese Canadians teens had greater influence than parents on convenience products
Male same-sex couples’ purchase decisions
- Highly egalitarian, joint decisions
- Greater resources (income and occupational status) increase influence
Male same-sex couples’ conflict resolution styles
- Compromise: decreases influence, increases joint decisions
- Aggression: increases influence, no effect on joint decisions
- Avoidance: decreases influence, no effect on joint decisions
- Main style is compromise
how do people make decisions?
- Decision process
- Intuition
- Heuristics (decision rules)
decision process - “DECIDE”
D – define the decision E – estimate resources C – consider alternatives I – imagine consequences/alternative courses of action D – develop action plan/implement E – evaluate decision
DEFINE the decision (step 1)
- Purpose of needed behaviour
- Relevant background information
- Obtain needed information
- How information used
ESTIMATE resources (step 2)
- Limited by:
- Number of alternatives
- Resources possessed
- Resources anticipated
CONSIDER alternatives (step 3)
- Have limitations on resources
- Usually cannot consider all alternatives
- Narrow to 1 or 2 alternatives
IMAGINE consequences/alternative courses of action (step 4)
- Think of most likely alternative
- Prepurchase expectation: consumer belief about anticipated performance of a good or service
what helps you choose alternatives
- Experience
- Experimentation
- Search for information
DEVELOP plan/implement (step 5)
- Put decision into action
- Monitor progress
- Evaluate progress and make adjustments
EVALUATE decision (step 6)
- Judge success of decision
- Reduce doubt or anxiety -> Post-purchase dissonance in consumer decision-making
when intuition might be okay…
- High level of uncertainty
- Little precedent for decision
- Limited info
- Limited time for decision
- Several plausible alternatives
quality of a decision
means that the decision meets some standard, objective, or goal
self-doubt
can cloud the ability to make decisions or to accept decisions once made
self-ambivalence
refers to uncertainty or indecisiveness as to what course to follow (e.g. what to purchase) because of a conflicted attitude toward the self (e.g. people may report to be torn between different parts of their personality and thus interferes with decision making.)
chain model
each decision builds on the previous one, forming a sequences of decisions, such the steps involved in preparing a meal, the chain model is appropriate for smaller, systematic decisions
central satellite model
- appropriate for larger, more complicated situations
- big decision in middle, smaller decisions that follow extend out of it
reference group
- people who affect decision-making
- primary reference group: people you interact with often and value the opinion of
- secondary reference group: people you don’t interact with often and don’t value the opinions of
self-esteem and decisiveness
low self-esteem = low decisiveness
avoidance and decidophobia
- avoidance: passing decision making buck is one way individuals avoid decisions
- Decidophobia: the fear of making decisions (specifically the fear of failure) -> Learned behavior, a type of helplessness, and it is a form of perfectionism
