One of the core challenges of decision research is to identify individuals’ decision strategies without influencing decision behavior by the method used. Bröder and Schiffer (2003) suggested a method to classify decision strategies based on a maximum likelihood estimation, comparing the probability of individuals’ choices given the application of a certain strategy and a constant error rate. Although this method was shown to be unbiased and practically useful, it obviously does not allow differentiating between models that make the same predictions concerning choices but different predictions for the underlying process, which is often the case when comparing complex to simple models or when comparing intuitive and deliberate strategies. An extended method is suggested that additionally includes decision times and confidence judgments in a simultaneous Multiple-Measure Maximum Likelihood estimation. In simulations, it is shown that the method is unbiased and sensitive to differentiate between strategies if the effects on times and confidence are sufficiently large.

In recent years, numerous studies comparing intuition and deliberation have been published. However, relatively little is known about the cognitive processes underlying the two decision modes. In two studies, we analyzed the effects of decision mode instructions on processes of information search and integration, using eye-tracking technology in a between-participants (Study 1) and a within-participants (Study 2) design. Our findings indicate that the instruction to deliberate does not necessarily lead to qualitatively different information processing compared to the instruction to decide intuitively. We found no difference in mean fixation duration and the distribution of short, medium and long fixations. Short fixations in particular prevailed under both decision mode instructions, while long fixations indicating a conscious and calculation-based information processing were rarely observed. Instruction-induced deliberation led to a higher number of fixations, a more complete information search and more repeated information inspections. We interpret our findings as support for the hypothesis that intuitive and deliberate decision modes share the same basic processes which are supplemented by additional operations in the deliberate decision mode.

The degree to which individuals prefer smaller sooner versus larger delayed rewards serves as a powerful predictor of their impulsivity towards a number of different kinds of rewards. Here we test the limits of its predictive ability within a variety of cognitive and social domains. Across several large samples of subjects, individuals who prefer smaller more immediate rewards (steeper discounters) are less reflective (or more impulsive) in their choices, preferences, and beliefs. First, steeper discounters used more automatic, less controlled choice strategies, giving more intuitive but incorrect responses on the Cognitive Reflection Test (replicating previous findings); employing a suboptimal probability matching heuristic for a one-shot gamble (rather than maximizing their probability of reward); and relying less on optimal planning in a two-stage reinforcement learning task. Second, steeper discounters preferred to consume information that was less complex and multi-faceted, as suggested by their self-reported Need for Cognitive Closure, their use of short-form social media (i.e., Twitter), and their preferred news sources (in particular, whether or not they preferred National Public Radio over other news sources). Third, steeper discounters had interpersonal and religious beliefs that are associated with reduced epistemic complexity: they were more likely to believe that the behavior of others could be explained by fixed rather than dynamic factors, and they believed more strongly in God and in the afterlife. Together these findings provide evidence for a link between individual differences in temporal discounting for monetary rewards and preferences for the path of least resistance (less reflective and/or more automatic modes of processing) across a variety of domains.

We claim that understanding human decisions requires that both automatic and deliberate processes be considered. First, we sketch the qualitative differences between two hypothetical processing systems, an automatic and a deliberate system. Second, we show the potential that connectionism offers for modeling processes of decision making and discuss some empirical evidence. Specifically, we posit that the integration of information and the application of a selection rule are governed by the automatic system. The deliberate system is assumed to be responsible for information search, inferences and the modification of the network that the automatic processes act on. Third, we critically evaluate the multiple-strategy approach to decision making. We introduce the basic assumption of an integrative approach stating that individuals apply an all-purpose rule for decisions but use different strategies for information search. Fourth, we develop a connectionist framework that explains the interaction between automatic and deliberate processes and is able to account for choices both at the option and at the strategy level.

Three studies tested whether people use cues about the way other people think—for example, whether others respond fast vs. slow—to infer what responses other people might give to reasoning problems. People who solve reasoning problems using deliberative thinking have better insight than intuitive problem-solvers into the responses that other people might give to the same problems. Presumably because deliberative responders think of intuitive responses before they think of deliberative responses, they are aware that others might respond intuitively, particularly in circumstances that hinder deliberative thinking (e.g., fast responding). Intuitive responders, on the other hand, are less aware of alternative responses to theirs, so they infer that other people respond as they do, regardless of the way others respond.

The dual-process model of the mind predicts that religious belief will be stronger for intuitive decisions, whereas reflective thinking will lead to religious disbelief (i.e., the intuitive religious belief hypothesis). While early research found intuition to promote and reflection to weaken belief in God, more recent attempts found no evidence for the intuitive religious belief hypothesis. Many of the previous studies are underpowered to detect small effects, and it is not clear whether the cognitive process manipulations used in these failed attempts worked as intended. We investigated the influence of intuitive and reflective thought on belief in God in two large-scale preregistered experiments (N = 1,602), using well-established cognitive manipulations (i.e., time-pressure with incentives for compliance) and alternative elicitation methods (between and within-subject designs). Against our initial hypothesis based on the literature, the experiments provide first suggestive then confirmatory evidence for the reflective religious belief hypothesis. Exploratory examination of the data suggests that reflection increases doubts about beliefs held regarding God’s existence. Reflective doubt exists primarily among non-believers, resulting in an overall increase in belief in God when deciding reflectively.

Kieslich and Hilbig (2014) employ a mouse-tracking technique to measure decision conflict in social dilemmas. They report that defectors exhibit more conflict than do cooperators. They infer that cooperation thus is the reflexive, default behavior. We argue, however, that their analysis fails to discriminate between reflexive versus cognitively controlled behavioral responses. This is because cognitive conflict can emanate from resisting impulse successfully—or unsuccessfully.

Decision making research often dichotomises between more deliberative, cognitive processes and more heuristic, intuitive and emotional processes. We argue that within this two-systems framework (e.g., Kahneman, 2002) there is ambiguity over how to map the System 1/System 2 axis, and the notion of intuitive processing, onto the distinction between conscious and non-conscious processes. However the convergent concepts of experience-based metacognitive judgements (Koriat, 2007) and of fringe consciousness (Mangan, 1993) can clarify intuitive processing as an informative conscious feeling without conscious access to the antecedents of the feeling. We stress that these intuitive feelings can be used to guide behaviour in a controlled and contextually sensitive manner that would not be permitted by purely non-conscious influences on behaviour. An outline is provided for how to empirically recognise these intuitive feelings. This is illustrated with an example from research on implicit learning where intuitive feelings may play an important role in peoples’ decisions and judgements. Finally we suggest that our approach to understanding intuitive feelings softens rather than reinforces the two-systems dichotomy.

We study the effects of experimental manipulation of decision mode (rational “brain” vs. affective “heart”) and individual difference in processing styles (intuition vs. deliberation) on prosocial behavior. In a survey experiment with a diverse sample of the Swedish population (n = 1,828), we elicited the individuals’ processing style and we experimentally manipulated reliance on affect or reason, regardless of subjects’ preferred mode. Prosocial behavior was measured across a series of commonly used and incentivized games (prisoner’s dilemma game, public goods game, trust game, dictator game). Our results show that prosocial behavior increased for the affective (“heart”) decision mode. Further, individual differences in processing style did not predict prosocial behavior and did not interact with the experimental manipulation.

Several approaches to judgment and decision making emphasize the effort-reducing properties of heuristics. One prominent example for effort-reduction is the recognition heuristic (RH) which proposes that judgments are made by relying on one single cue (recognition), ignoring other information. Our research aims to shed light on the conditions under which the RH is more useful and thus relied on more often. We propose that intuitive thinking is fast, automatic, and effortless whereas deliberative thinking is slower, stepwise, and more effortful. Because effort-reduction is thus much more important when processing information deliberately, we hypothesize that the RH should be more often relied on in such situations. In two city-size-experiments, we instructed participants to think either intuitively or deliberatively and assessed use of the RH through a formal measurement model. Results revealed that, in both experiments, use of the RH was more likely when judgments were to be made deliberatively, rather than intuitively. As such, we conclude that the potential application of heuristics is not necessarily a consequence of “intuitive” processing. Rather, their effort-reducing features are probably most beneficial when thinking more deliberatively.

Whereas people’s reasoning is often biased by intuitive stereotypical associations, recent debiasing studies suggest that performance can be boosted by short training interventions that stress the underlying problem logic. The nature of this training effect remains unclear. Does training help participants correct erroneous stereotypical intuitions through deliberation? Or does it help them develop correct intuitions? We addressed this issue in four studies with base-rate neglect and conjunction fallacy problems. We used a two-response paradigm in which participants first gave an initial intuitive response, under time pressure and cognitive load, and then gave a final response after deliberation. Studies 1A and 2A showed that training boosted performance and did so as early as the intuitive stage. After training, most participants solved the problems correctly from the outset and no longer needed to correct an initial incorrect answer through deliberation. Studies 1B and 2B indicated that this sound intuiting persisted over at least two months. The findings confirm that a short training can debias reasoning at an intuitive “System 1” stage and get reasoners to favour logical over stereotypical intuitions.

The Deliberation without Attention (DWA) effect refers to apparent improvements in decision-making following a period of distraction. It has been presented as evidence for beneficial unconscious cognitive processes. We identify two major concerns with this claim: first, as these demonstrations typically involve subjective preferences, the effects of distraction cannot be objectively assessed as beneficial; second, there is no direct evidence that the DWA manipulation promotes unconscious decision processes. We describe two tasks based on the DWA paradigm in which we found no evidence that the distraction manipulation led to decision processes that are subjectively unconscious, nor that it reduced the influence of presentation order upon performance. Crucially, we found that a lack of awareness of decision process was associated with poorer performance, both in terms of subjective preference measures used in traditional DWA paradigm and in an equivalent task where performance can be objectively assessed. Therefore, we argue that reliance on conscious memory itself can explain the data. Thus the DWA paradigm is not an adequate method of assessing beneficial unconscious thought.

In 2012, two independent groups simultaneously demonstrated that intuitive mindset enhances belief in God. However, there is now some mixed evidence on both the effectiveness of manipulations used in these studies and the effect of mindset manipulation on belief in God. Thus, this proposal attempted to replicate one of those experiments (Shenhav, Rand & Greene, 2012) for the first time in a high-powered experiment using an under-represented population (Turkey). In line with the intuitive belief hypothesis, a negative correlation between reflectiveness and religious belief emerged, at least in one of the experimental conditions. In contrast to that hypothesis, however, the results revealed no effect of the cognitive style manipulation on religious belief. Although a self-report measure (Faith in Intuition) provided evidence that the manipulation worked as intended, it did not influence actual performance (Cognitive Reflection Test), suggesting a demand effect problem. Overall, the results failed to provide support for the intuitive belief hypothesis in our non-WEIRD sample, despite generally following the predicted patterns, and suggest that using stronger manipulation techniques are warranted in future studies.

Recently, it has been suggested that people are spontaneously inclined to cooperate in social dilemmas, whereas defection requires effortful deliberation. From this assumption, we derive that defection should entail more cognitive conflict than cooperation. To test this hypothesis, the current study presents a first application of the response dynamics paradigm (i.e., mouse-tracking) to social dilemmas. In a fully incentivized lab experiment, mouse movements were tracked while participants played simple two-person social dilemma games with two options (cooperation and defection). Building on previous research, curvature of mouse movements was taken as an indicator of cognitive conflict. In line with the hypothesis of less cognitive conflict in cooperation, response trajectories were more curved (towards the non-chosen option) when individuals defected than when they cooperated. In other words, the cooperative option exerted more “pull” on mouse movements in case of defection than the non-cooperative option (defection) did in case of cooperation. This effect was robust across different types of social dilemmas and occurred even in the prisoner’s dilemma, where defection was predominant on the choice level. Additionally, the effect was stronger for dispositional cooperators as measured by the Honesty-Humility factor of the HEXACO personality model. As such, variation in the effect across individuals could be accounted for through cooperativeness.

The present research aimed to test the role of mood in the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara et al., 1994). In the IGT, participants can win or lose money by picking cards from four different decks. They have to learn by experience that two decks are overall advantageous and two decks are overall disadvantageous. Previous studies have shown that at an early stage in this card-game, players begin to display a tendency towards the advantageous decks. Subsequent research suggested that at this stage, people base their decisions on conscious gut feelings (Wagar & Dixon, 2006). Based on empirical evidence for the relation between mood and cognitive processing-styles, we expected and consistently found that, compared to a negative mood state, reported and induced positive mood states increased this early tendency towards advantageous decks. Our results provide support for the idea that a positive mood causes stronger reliance on affective signals in decision-making than a negative mood.