PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS OF DECISION ATTITUDE

Decision attitude - an analog of risk attitude - is the propensity to make (or avoid making) a decision: in decision aversion, a person find s it more desirable to receive through fiat the better of two options than to have a choice between them; in decision seeking, the choice is more desirable, even though it can lead to nothing better than the be st option. Both decision aversion and decision seeking were found in h ypothetical scenarios. Experimental manipulations and subjects' justif ications point to anticipated regret, fear of blame for poor outcomes, and desire for equitable distributions as sources of decision aversio n. One source of decision seeking (for self) and decision aversion (wh en deciding for others) appears to be the desire for the self-determin ation of the affected parties. We consider the implications of our res ults for personal choice and public policy decisions.