Unpacking Decision Domains - Commentary on “Domain-Specific Preferences for Intuition and Deliberation in Decision Making”

Opposing the idea that individual preferences for decision styles (intuitive vs. deliberative) are relatively stable across decision domains, Pachur and Spaar (2015) show that individuals prefer different decision styles depending on the domain of the decision (e.g., mate choice vs. buying electronics). In this commentary, we seek to expand upon these results by considering why individuals might favor one style over another across different domains. Drawing upon previous work, we suggest that the characteristics related to the structure of the environment (i.e., pattern of information available) and individual-based factors (e.g., expertise, importance of decision, risk perception) can help distinguish different decision domains. Moreover, we suggest that these differences can help uncover how different decision domains engender different decision styles.