Discrepancies Of Self-Other Decision Making

Lots of researches have focused on the discrepancies in self-other decision making, but there is no unified result on the topic yet. This may be resulted from several reasons:(1) the manipulation of the decision target is different among researches (e.g. some used vivid target versus abstract target, some used similar target versus dissimilar target etc.);(2) the manipulation of decision maker’s role is different among researches (e.g. some let participants make decision for other, some let participants predict other’s choice, some let participants make an advice for other etc.);(3) decision tasks are different among researches;(4) individual difference of decision maker (e.g. self-esteem, personality etc.). In addition, most of current researches on self-other decision making are result-based and focused on the discrepancies in choice result or risk preference. Few researches have tried to explore the differences in decision making process in self-other decision making. Such researches will sure to present a much clearer view of the internal process of self-other decision making.Current research is conducted for two main purposes. One is to compare and analyze the differences in decision making process of self-other decision making. The other is to distinguish and test the influential factors of self-other decision making. By using mouse lab technique, the impact of decision maker’s role (Experiment1), and decision target (Experiment2&3), decision tasks (Experiment3), task related experience (Experiment4) on the process of self-other decision making is tested.The major findings are:(1) compared with decision for oneself, participants who made decision for others are prone to search more information and spend more time on decision making;(2) the decision making process of predicting other’s choice is similar to the process of decision making for other, but the information search pattern of predicting one’s choice is much closer to decision for oneself;(3) the decision making process are different among different tasks, while task-importance does not show an significant effect on self-other decision making process;(4) participants inclined to search more information and spend more time in decision making as the psychological distance increased, when the decision target is vivid, but not when the decision target is abstract;(5) the level of task related experience and psychological distance has interaction.The result of the research demonstrate that the level of individual difference of the decision maker, decision target, decision tasks, and decision maker’s role do have impact on self-other decision making process in their own ways. Thus, the result indicates the complexity of researching on discrepancies in self-other decision making, and bunch of questions still needs to be answered.