Behavioral routines in decision making: the effects of novelty in task presentation and time pressure on routine maintenance and deviation

This article examines the role of behavioral routines in decision making. I n order to induce routines, participants were confronted with recurrent rou te decisions in a computer-controlled trucking game, which allows for manip ulation of routine acquisition and strength. During the final round of the game, time pressure and novelty in task presentation were varied as between -factors, It was hypothesized that time pressure would increase the likelih ood of routine maintenance and novelty would increase the likelihood of dev iation. Besides individual choices, response latencies and self-reports wer e additionally assessed to measure the amount of deliberation during decisi on making. Results show that time pressure strongly increased the probabili ty of routine maintenance, even though the situation indicated the inadequa cy of the routine. In contrast, novelty in task presentation provoked routi ne deviation and increased deliberation, as evident from response latencies and self-reports. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.