Decision-making style: habit, style or both?

The purpose of this study was to explore the relations between individual decision-making styles as measured by the General Decision-making Style (GDMS) test, developed by Scott and Bruce (1995), and some mental abilities theoretically related to decision-making. Participants were 206 Swedish military officers from all services. The multiple regression analysis showed that the Rational, Dependent and Avoidant, but not the Intuitive and Spontaneous decision-making styles could be partly predicted from scores on the Self-esteem Scales (Forsman & Johnson, 1996) and from scores on the Action Control Scales (Kuhl, 1994). The result indicates that decision-making style is not only reflective of habits and thinking practices as proposed in earlier research. Decision-making style also involves basic self-evaluation and the general ability to initiate and maintain intentions (i.e. self-regulation). This calls for a wider definition of the term decision-making style, a holistic definition that takes the whole individual into consideration.