EAPSI: Understanding how people incorporate others' preferences into personal choices

人们在日常生活中不断地被各种选择轰炸。这些选择往往不是在真空中做出的，而是在复杂的社会环境中做出的。目前的项目旨在研究人们如何做出有效的选择，以及他们如何将他人的想法和感受纳入自己的决策过程。这个项目将直接比较美国人(一种注重表达个人偏好的个人主义文化)和日本人(一种重视对他人想法和意见敏感的集体主义文化)的选择策略。这项工作将与京都大学文化心理学领域的著名专家内田由纪子博士合作进行。通过了解个人信息(如个人偏好)、客观信息(如产品规格)和社会信息(如他人偏好)之间的动态相互作用，本研究最终可以帮助人们做出更好的选择，从而获得更好的长期身体健康、心理健康和生活满意度。选择的心理学和经济学理论几乎都专注于个人偏好在选择中的作用，因此本研究通过考察他人偏好在选择过程中的作用来扩展这一文献。大多数审查决策过程的同行评议研究都考察了西方工业化背景下的选择，因此人们对其他地方是否可以使用相同的选择策略知之甚少。在目前的项目中，美国和日本的参与者都将完成假设和真实的选择，并将衡量这些个人对个人信息、客观信息和社会信息的依赖程度。该项目还将考察对这些不同类型信息的依赖程度对自我报告的选择后满意度、信心和悔恨的影响程度。该NSF EAPSI奖是与日本科学促进会合作资助的。

People are constantly bombarded with choices in their everyday lives. Often these choices are made, not in a vacuum, but rather in a complex social environment. The current project aims to examine how people make effective choices and how they incorporate others' thoughts and feelings into their decision-making process. This project will directly compare choice strategies of people from the United States (an individualistic culture that values expressing one's personal preferences) and people from Japan (a collectivistic cultures that values being sensitive to others' thoughts and opinions). This work will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Yukiko Uchida at Kyoto University, a noted expert in the field of Cultural Psychology. By understanding the dynamic interplay between personal information (e.g., personal preferences), objective information (e.g., product specifications), and social information (e.g., others' preferences), this research can ultimately help people make better choices which lead to better long-term physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction.Both psychological and economic theories of choice have almost exclusively focused on the role of personal preferences in choice, and therefore this research expands upon this literature by investigating the role of others' preferences in the choice process. The majority of peer-reviewed studies examining decision-making processes have examined choice in a Western, industrialized context, and thus less is known about whether the same choice strategies may be used elsewhere. In the current project both American and Japanese participants will complete hypothetical and real choices and the degree to which these individuals rely on personal information, objective information, and social information to make choices will be measured. The project will also examine the degree to which reliance on these different types of information influence self-reported post-choice satisfaction, confidence, and regret. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.